Among the Gems
by Hostfanatic
Summary: Sequel to "Among the Lights." Adam his back for his revenge, and Jeanette is gone AGAIN! How will the other chipmunks find her and get her back? Join the old cast, but add in a halfway insane Adam, a kindly servant named Monique, and some magic gems that have a secret as old as time itself.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello! Hostfanatic here. This is a sequel to my first story, "Among the Lights," so if you haven't read that one, then you shouldn't read this one. Here's the first chapter of Among the Gems! I hope you enjoy! Read and Review, please! I'd really appreciate it.**

** Enjoy!**

Jeanette sighed to herself as she entered the school building. She was usually a fan of school itself, but she didn't like going between classes. None of her friends were in her classes—not that she had a lot of friends—and she was always alone when she walked in the hallways. That always made her a target for the other kids and bullies that were around.

Suddenly, she felt someone step on her tail. She let out a squeal and turned to see Ryan, one of the football players, grinning evilly down at her.

"Get off my tail," she said through gritted teeth.

He pretended to be surprised. "Oh! Was I on your tail?" He smirked.

Jeanette tugged it out from under his shoe and tried to scamper off. But then she felt him grab her around the waist. She let out a yelp as he lifted her high into the air, and she dropped her books, spilling them all over the hallway.

"Oh, but look at that," he continued. "It's got some dirt on it. Why don't we go wash it off?"

Jeanette's eyes widened. "Nooooo," she squealed, "I'm fine. Just let go of me…"

"I think it's time for a SWIRLY!" Ryan yelled, keeping a tight grip on Jeanette as he carried her toward the bathroom.

"No!" Jeanette shrieked, completely losing it. "Put me down! Not that! Let go! Help!"

He flushed the toilet and was about to drop her in. She was screaming now, wriggling and squirming, trying as hard as she could to get free.

"Hey!"

They both turned at the unexpected voice, and when Jeanette saw who it was, her insides were flooded with relief.

"Simon!" she squealed. "Help me!"

"Put her down," Simon snarled. "Now."

Ryan laughed and lowered her a bit farther.

"You're asking for it, Ryan," Simon warned him. He knew why Jeanette was losing it. Jeanette was absolutely terrified of water.

Ryan dropped her!

Jeanette screamed as she fell through the air, but Simon had seen it coming and had launched himself into the air at the same second. He landed on the edge of the toilet and managed to catch her just before she fell in the water.

He pulled her out of the toilet bowl, and she clung to him, shivering with fright.

Simon smirked up at Ryan. "There's going to be a surprise waiting for you in sixth period," he told the bully before pulling Jeanette out of the bathroom just before Ryan could get to them.

They ran down the halls. Ryan was chasing them, though, and Jeanette saw that he was angry that his trick hadn't worked. Jeanette only stopped to scoop up her books where they had fallen, and then they raced on to sixth period science. They shared that class with Ryan, and Jeanette was wondering what Simon had meant by "a surprise" waiting for the bully.

They managed to get to the class, and they slipped in through the door. There was, surprisingly, the principal waiting in the classroom.

"Are you all right?" he kindly asked Jeanette.

She nodded, wondering how he had known. Then she looked over at the knowing smile on her boyfriend's face and suddenly understood.

They hopped up on the desk that they shared and smiled as Ryan came in two minutes late.

"Did you bully this student?" they heard the principal ask Ryan, gesturing to Jeanette.

"Yes," Jeanette muttered, loud enough for him to hear.

"I…I…" Ryan stammered.

"You're going to have to come with me, young man," the principal said sternly, and he and Ryan left the room.

Jeanette smiled at Simon and whispered "Thanks. I thought I was toast!"

"I'm sorry I didn't get their sooner," Simon said regretfully. "Then you wouldn't have been forced to go in the boys' bathroom!"

Jeanette giggled as she pulled the microscope over to them.

She had been so panicked before, but everything felt just fine now.

Little did she know that that wouldn't last long.

"Hey!"

Jeanette and Simon were just leaving the library when they heard the voice. They both turned to see a scowling Ryan storming up to them.

"Thanks to you, I have detention for three weeks!" he yelled at Simon, clenching his fists. Simon instantly stepped in front of Jeanette.

Even though they were in a dire situation, Jeanette was instantly thrown into a flashback. Ever since what had happened to her, back on the island with Zoe and then at the house with Adam, Simon had rarely let Jeanette out of his sight. Whenever he felt like Jeanette was being threatened, he always got super protective instantly. Like this. Jeanette thought it was wonderfully sweet, and it had come in handy several times, like earlier when he had saved her from being dropped in the toilet. But sometimes she got frightened. Not for herself, but for Simon. Because whenever he put her out of harm's way like that, he was usually putting himself in it.

"You were being a bully," Simon was saying coolly, and Jeanette brought herself back to the present. "So you deserved it."

With an unintelligible growl, Ryan grabbed Simon by the tail and lifted him high into the air. Simon let out a yelp.

Jeanette felt frozen, rooted to the spot. She couldn't do a thing as Ryan's other friends came. It was clear that it was their intention to beat up Simon. This was everything she had been afraid of—that Simon would get hurt protecting her.

"Stop it," she tried to say, but all that came out of her mouth was a high-pitched squeak.

One of the boys laughed meanly, and he snatched Jeanette up by her tail. She let out a shriek of fear as he raised her high in the air.

"HEY! PUT THEM DOWN!"

They both turned to see Alvin and Brittany storming down the sidewalk to their rescue.

The boys scowled. They knew Alvin, and they knew that they could cause him some serious trouble.

"As you wish," the boy holding Simon sneered, and he dropped him. Simon fell hard on the sidewalk.

"Simon!" Jeanette cried.

"Put her down GENTLY!" Brittany commanded the boy holding Jeanette, crossing her arms. He scowled, but put Jeanette back on the sidewalk.

"This isn't over," Ryan snarled at Simon before turning on his heel and stomping off.

"Simon!" Jeanette wailed, rushing over and helping the blue-clad chipmunk to his feet. "Simon, I'm so sorry, I just froze up." She felt terrible. Simon had protected her earlier, and when he had been in trouble, she didn't do a thing about it.

"It's not your fault," Simon assured her, spitting out some grass and brushing at his sweatshirt. Jeanette still felt absolutely horrible.

"Thanks, Alvin," Simon told him, trying to get the grass stains off of his sweatshirt. "I owe you one."

"Thank you, guys," Jeanette told them.

"Ryan's just a big bully," Brittany scoffed, glaring after Ryan. "Are you all right, guys?"

"We're fine," Jeanette said, "I think."

Simon nodded. "Let's go home, Jeanette."

She nodded, too.

The four chipmunks started off toward home. Little did they know that someone was in the bushes, watching them.

The chipmunk chuckled darkly as he peered through his binoculars. They were focused on the four chipmunks strolling down the sidewalk and talking with one another, particularly focused on Simon and Jeanette in the front.

Particularly Jeanette.

Particularly Simon's arm around Jeanette.

He gritted his teeth.

_Tonight, _he reminded himself. _It will all be taken care of tonight. _

He couldn't help but smile at that.

"Oh, yes," he mumbled, peering through the binoculars again. "I've got plans for you, Jeanette."

He watched them for awhile longer before realizing that there were a lot of arrangements to be made. He turned to leave. He had to talk to his guards, make sure everything was in position.

Because tonight, everything would change.

But he couldn't resist turning back for one last look through the binoculars at the purple-clad chipette, laughing at something that Simon said, her purple eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

"This one's for you, Callie," Adam whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hostfanatic here with the second chapter of "Among the Gems." I hope you enjoy!**

** Disclaimer: I don't own Alvin and the Chipmunks, nor do I own the Chipettes, nor do I own Dave or Zoe.**

** I do, however, own Adam. So back off.**

** Enjoy!**

"It's been a long day today," Jeanette said, finally closing her textbook and clearly aiming the statement at Simon. It meant, _you've stalled long enough. It's time to go to bed._ She stretched and yawned.

"Is your mattress still being cleaned?" Simon asked, clearly upset. That meant, _are you still sleeping downstairs, _which meant, _are you still spending almost twelve hours in a completely separate part of the house from me? _ They had found mold and a stuffing leak on the bottom of Jeanette's mattress, so they had to remove it so that they could clean it. Jeanette was sleeping on the big chair downstairs for now, but when Simon had tried to go down to sleep with her, Dave had told him no. No matter how many times Simon insisted that they wouldn't do anything bad and that he was just trying to protect her, Dave remained firm—Simon had to stay in his own bed. So the two were separated at nights.

"I think tonight is the last night," Jeanette assured him, which meant _yes, the mattress is still being cleaned, _which meant _yes, I am still sleeping downstairs and yes, you are still sleeping upstairs. _"We should be getting it back tomorrow." That meant, _don't have a panic attack, there's only one more night to go._

"I don't like it when you're down here by yourself," Simon insisted, not bothering anymore to not say what he really meant. "Dave isn't even here tonight. What if something bad happens?"

"Hey," Jeanette said calmly. "I'll be fine. Dave is just out with Claire. He said he'd be back by eleven."

"All right," Simon said reluctantly. He kissed her quickly before scampering upstairs as everyone shouted, "GET A ROOM!"

Jeanette giggled softly and said goodnight to her sisters as she curled up under her blanket. She had harbored feelings for the bespectacled chipmunk ever since they had first met, but had been too shy to tell him about it. Then, after he rescued her from the island, they officially became a couple.

Jeanette shivered, just remembering it.

The six chipmunks, Dave, and Ian had all gotten shipwrecked on a deserted island. They met a girl there named Zoe, who claimed that she had crash-landed on the island eight years ago. She had a tennis ball, a football, a basketball, and a golf ball for company.

On the island, Simon had been bitten by a spider. The spider had special venom in it that made your personality change and made you forget about it. Simon had been changed into a French chipmunk named Simone. He constantly flirted with Jeanette, and they had been dancing one day when she had destroyed Zoe's tennis ball in a freak accident. Zoe was furious and despised Jeanette ever since.

Later, they found out that there was a volcano on the island and it was about to erupt! Everyone tried to find a way to get off the island, and they had built a raft. However, Simone and Jeanette had been in the jungle by themselves, finding food to put on the raft. Then, Zoe had knocked out Simone and kidnapped Jeanette.

Zoe had really come to the island to find the treasure that she had heard about. It was in a cave behind the waterfall, though, with an opening so small that only a chipmunk could fit. She forced Jeanette to bring up all the treasure, and then stole the raft from the other chipmunks and chipettes and made it back to land. They had beached several weeks later in Florida, where Zoe had found her old house.

Zoe had secretly brought back some of the spiders, and she let one bite Jeanette. When a female was bitten, their appearance changed as well as their personality. Jeanette turned into Calissa the chipmunk, and everyone called her Callie. Callie had become an international superstar just as famous at the chipmunks/chipettes. She had met another singing chipmunk named Adam, and the two quickly fell in love.

The chipmunks and chipettes found Simone back on the island, but he had been hit so hard by Zoe that he turned back into Simon. They managed to find a log and get off the island before the volcano erupted, and they had been picked up by a cruise ship called the S.S. Tipton. It took an entire year to get back to the United States.

Then they had taken a plane to Zoe's house and had captured Callie. Simon had made a cure to the venom and he had injected Callie with it, turning her back into Jeanette. Adam and Zoe had followed them there, though.

Adam tried to take Jeanette back, but Simon managed to stop him. Jeanette had gotten hurt though. Her arm and her leg had both been broken, and she had internal bleeding in her head that had caused her to go into a month-long coma. Zoe had been arrested, but Adam had escaped. Simon had tried to follow him, but Adam had sworn revenge on Simon and Jeanette before leaving. They hadn't seen him since.

Simon hadn't told anyone what Adam had told him, but he became watchful and protective of Jeanette. He didn't want her to get hurt.

Jeanette curled up on the chair and snuggled down under her blanket. Her eyes drifted shut.

Little did she know that someone was lurking outside. A dangerous predator was waiting to spring.

Adam had come back for his revenge at last.

Adam had brought six chipmunks with him. Two to deal with Jeanette, and one each to deal with Theodore, Eleanor, Alvin, and Brittany.

If Simon gave them problems, Adam would deal with Simon. He smiled slightly at the thought, and then motioned to the chipmunks dressed in black with ski masks over their heads. Three of them stood on top of each other and the top one picked the lock.

The door drifted open. They crept quietly into the room.

Adam had planned this for a long time. How else would neat, tidy Jeanette have gotten mold and a leak in her mattress? He had made sure it was there so that she would be alone and downstairs when he came to capture her. He also made sure it was on a night that Dave wasn't there.

Two chipmunks snuck over to the chair where she was sleeping.

Adam motioned to them, and they quickly grabbed her arms.

Her eyes flew open and she blinked sleepily. "Wha…Simon?" she muttered groggily.

Adam couldn't resist. He leaned over the chair, and her violet eyes flew wide open in shock at the sight of him.

"I'm back," he sang.

"SIMON!" Jeanette shrieked instantly, jumping to her feet and climbing up so that she was perched on top of the chair.

Upstairs, Simon was awake in an instant. "Jeanette?" he called sleepily, groping around on the bedside table for his glasses.

"Hello again, Jeanette," Adam sneered, motioning to the chipmunks. They sprang at her and pinned her to the ground.

"HELP! SIMON, HE—," One of the chipmunks clamped a paw firmly over her mouth, and her words were cut off as she struggled.

"Jeanette? Jeanette!" Simon was getting worried now. He heard a thud from downstairs and heard Jeanette screaming, and then suddenly it was cut off.

"JEANETTE!" he yelled, springing out of bed. The others were awake now, too, watching sleepily as he bolted out of the room.

Then they heard Jeanette screaming downstairs.

In half an instant they were all wide awake, even Alvin, and were scrambling out of their beds and down the stairs.

Simon ran down three steps and jumped down the last six, landing hard on the floor and looking around.

Then he saw two chipmunks dressed in black, pinning a struggling Jeanette to the ground.

"Get off of her!" he roared, leaping forward, but something slammed into him from the side, and he flew through the air, crashing into the wall and sliding down to the floor in a crumpled heap.

"SIMON!" Jeanette shrieked, freeing her mouth. "SIMON, NO!"

Simon forced himself to focus and look up at his attacker.

There, standing over him and smirking, was his worst nightmare.

"Hello again, Seville," he sneered.

"Adam," Simon hissed, getting to his feet.

Just then, the others tumbled down the stairs and saw what was going on.

"JEAN!" Eleanor cried.

"Help me!" Jeanette cried back as the chipmunks yanked her to her feet and began dragging her toward the door.

Simon launched himself at Adam and managed to kick him hard in the gut. Adam fell to the floor, the breath knocked out of him, and Simon raced after the chipmunks. The others were quick to follow, but the other four chipmunks dressed in black blocked their way. Alvin tackled his to the ground, but the chipmunk sprang up again and drove Alvin into the counter. Alvin let out a yell and fell to the ground.

"Alvin!" Brittany ran to his side, but one of the black-clad chipmunks grabbed her arm, twisted it behind her, and yanked her away from Alvin. She let out a cry of pain.

Eleanor was knocked into the table. She let out a yelp, but before she could do anything, she felt the chipmunk grab her and pin her to the table leg. He grabbed both her arms and pulled them behind her, so that they were pressed together and wrapped backwards around the table leg. There was a rustle and she felt a pinching feeling on her wrists, and then the black-clad chipmunk wheeled and darted off again.

"Hey!" she cried when she realized that he had tied her hands together. She was stuck to the table leg.

Theodore was holding his own on the counter until he was kicked hard in the chest and knocked into the sink. Then the black-clad chipmunk kicked the pile of dirty dishes that was teetering over the sink, and they all went crashing down, burying Theodore.

"RETREAT, 'MUNKS!" came the shout from the door. The two that had battled Eleanor and Theodore wheeled and raced out the front door. The one pinning Alvin down delivered him another kick to the head, and he fell over. The one holding Brittany lifted her high above his head and threw her with all his might, and she went hurtling through the air before actually crashing through the window. She landed in the bushes on the other side of the house and blacked out.

Simon, the only one who could still move, ran after Adam as fast as he could. Jeanette was still screaming.

Adam wheeled and launched himself at Simon, knocking Simon to the ground and punching him in the gut. Simon saw the two chipmunks shoving Jeanette, his Jeanette, into some sort of rough sack. She was screaming his name.

"You'll never find her again," Adam whispered to Simon. "She's all mine now." He laughed evilly and smashed his foot into the side of Simon's head.

The chipmunk holding the sack held the top shut with his hand, slung the sack over his shoulder, and disappeared into the darkness with Jeanette still shouting inside. The other five chipmunks wearing black dashed after him.

Adam laughed at Simon. Simon heard an engine start in the distance, mingled with Jeanette's muffled screams.

The last thing he heard was Adam hissing, "I told you I'd get my revenge."

Then he saw Adam's booted foot heading straight for his head, and everything went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**I personally like this chapter because it really shows Ellie's maternal side. I hope you enjoy it, too!**

**P.S. Thanks to the amount of people who have been reviewing! You're all amazing.**

Eleanor was the only one still conscious, and she was struggling as hard as she could to get free. She yanked again and again against the knot. Alvin was slumped on the floor, Theodore was buried under the dishes, Brittany was unconscious and bleeding in the bushes, and Simon was out cold on the street.

Just then, Alvin let out a low moan.

"Alvin!" Eleanor cried. "Alvin, you have to get over here."

He focused on her with difficulty.

"Want…to…sleep," he gasped.

"You can sleep, just as soon as you chew through this rope on my hands," she said urgently. "Can you do that, Alvin? Please. Please, just chew through it, and then you can do whatever you want. Please, Alvin. Please."

He couldn't stand, or even crawl, but he began to drag himself over to where she was.

It took him five minutes to get over to her, and another ten to chew through the rope. It was slow going, and he had to rest several times, but finally, the rope began to fray. Eleanor threw herself forward as hard as she could and the rope snapped against the table leg. She stumbled forward and managed to regain her balance. She saw that Alvin had passed out again.

She was shaking and shivering. _Think, _she told herself. _Think. What do you do when someone is hurt?_

_ Dave. Call Dave._

_ But I have to take care of them first!_

She focused on what she had learned in her medical training.

First, she moved Alvin to the couch with some difficulty. Then she raced back to the counter and jumped up on it. She moved the dishes in the sink until she saw a flash of green.

Theo's sweater!

She heard a low moan from under all the dishes, and she reached in and grabbed a fistful of fabric. She pulled as hard as she could, and she managed to get him out from all the dishes. She set him gently on the counter. He was passed out, too.

She couldn't just drop him off the counter, but she couldn't carry him down, either. What should she do?

She finally managed to make a pulley system with a pan and the remains of the rope. She lowered Theodore down to the ground and moved him onto the couch next to Alvin.

Then she jumped out through the hole in the window that Brittany had made, calling and searching for her sister. She finally found the pink clad chipette tangled up in the bush. After some difficulty, she managed to extract her sister from the bush and got her back into the house.

Then she ran out again, calling Simon's name over and over. She finally saw him on the sidewalk, under the streetlamp, with a good-sized lump on his head.

She grabbed him under the armpits and managed to drape him over her shoulder. It took her nearly five minutes to get him back to the house, but she managed.

She put him on the couch, too, and then went straight to the phone to call Dave.

He didn't answer his cell phone, so she left a message telling him to call back immediately and that Brittany, Alvin, Theodore, and Simon were hurt. Then she hurried to take care of them.

First, she moved them all to their beds. Then she thought hard. She had to clean them off…which meant she had to take their clothes off.

Take off the boys' clothes? Take off _Theodore's _clothes?

_Chipmunks have gone without clothes before, _she reminded herself sternly. _That's actually how we're supposed to be. Get over it. Nurses have to look at naked people sometimes._

She managed to get them all into their room and each in their own individual bed. She pulled the first aid kit up, too.

She removed Alvin's sweater and threw it in the wash. Then she cleaned the scrapes and cuts covering his body and put Neosporin and Band-Aids on where he was bleeding. She washed his body as best as she could and then put him in a clean sweatshirt. She elevated his head and made sure that he was comfortable with a pillow and a blanket.

Next she moved to Simon, taking care of the minor cuts and bruises, washing him off, and putting on Band-Aids. She changed his clothes, too, and made sure that he had the pillow and the blanket on. She hurried to Theodore. He had several nasty bruises and a bad lump on his head, but he didn't have any cuts, so she just washed him off and put a new sweatshirt on him.

Brittany was the worst. She was covered in cuts and scrapes from the glass in the window, and her arm looked broken. It was already swelling.

Eleanor used the tweezers to remove the thorns and brambles that got stuck in Brittany. Brittany was covered in dirt and her wounds were too numerous to clean with a washcloth, so Eleanor had to help her to the bathroom. Eleanor didn't know whether or not it was safe to bathe Brittany in this condition, but she figured that it would help in the long run.

She drew a bath and put Brittany into it carefully. Brittany moaned and woke up slightly as Eleanor bathed her.

"Ellie?" she whispered as her sister scrubbed her fur clean.

"I'm here, Britt," Eleanor said softly.

"My arm hurts, Ellie," Brittany whimpered.

"I know," Eleanor said soothingly. "I'm taking care of that next. It's okay, Britt. Just relax." Eleanor picked the brambles and leaves out of her sister's hair before thoroughly shampooing it. This made Brittany smile slightly.

Eleanor tied her sister's hair back in a ponytail and then put Band-Aids and Neosporin on all the cuts. Brittany passed out again shortly after Eleanor had toweled her sister off. Eleanor helped her back to the bed. She felt around in Brittany's arm, but she didn't feel any bones that were out of place. That was good—Eleanor didn't rely on her medical skills all the way to setting a bone. She bandaged Brittany's arm tightly. Then she ran downstairs to get six ice packs. She also got some spare bandages.

She put an ice pack on Alvin's head and used a bandage to secure it there and make sure that it didn't fall off. She did the same to Simon's head, and put one gently on Theodore's head. He also had an extremely nasty bruise on his leg that she put an ice pack on as well. Then she put an ice pack on Brittany's head and on her arm.

All four were still unconscious, but they looked better than they had been before Eleanor had treated them. She stepped back. They were all in clean clothes and their fur was clean, with Band-Aids, ice packs, and medicine. They were comfortable in bed. Eleanor, satisfied that she had done all that she could, heard the phone ringing downstairs. She darted down and answered it.

"Eleanor?" Dave's voice sounded worried.

"Yeah, it's me, Dave," Eleanor said quickly.

"What happened?" Dave asked.

Eleanor paused. She didn't know how much to tell him. Finally, she decided to go with the truth, but not gory details.

"Some chipmunks came into the house and attacked us," Eleanor said quietly.

Dave gasped. "Is everyone all right?"

"I'm not sure," Eleanor said sadly. "Alvin got knocked into a wall and has a bump on his head, not to mention a lot of bruises. Simon is the same, but I don't know what happened to him. Brittany's arm is either sprained or broken, because one of the chipmunks twisted it behind her back the wrong way. And she's covered in cuts and bruises, because she got thrown through a window." She heard Dave suck in a breath, but plowed on before he could continue. "Theodore got pushed into a sink and all the dishes got knocked onto him, so he's got a lot of bruises and a lump on his head. All four are still unconscious."

"Are you okay?" Dave asked her.

"Well, I've got minor cuts and bruises, and some pretty bad rope burns on my wrists, but other than that, I'm okay," Eleanor told him. "My arms are kind of sore from being tied to that table, though."

"Tied to the table?" Dave sounded shocked. "How did you get off of it?"

"Alvin woke up for a little bit after the chipmunks left, and he chewed through the rope for me before he fell unconscious again," Eleanor explained. "That's why I'm not extremely worried about him, or Brittany, because she woke up for a little bit when I was cleaning her up. But Simon and Theodore haven't woken up yet, so I'm a bit concerned about them."

"Where is everyone now?"

"All four that got hurt are in bed. I cleaned them and patched them up and put some ice on them where they got hurt," Eleanor explained. "I'm not sure what else I can do for them. I'd like to give them some medicine or water, but they won't be able to swallow anything until they wake up."

"You'd better go take care of yourself, then," Dave told her. "I'll be home soon, and we can take everyone to the hospital." Then he paused. "Wait. Is Jeanette okay?"

Eleanor sighed. "Jeanette's gone, Dave," she said quietly. "They kidnapped Jeanette. That's why they came in the first place."

Dave was quiet for a long time. "I'll be home as fast as I can," he said eventually. "You've done a wonderful job, Eleanor, and you're very responsible. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks, Dave," Eleanor said. Despite the situation, she couldn't help but smile at her adopted father's praise.

"Now, clean yourself up, and I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Will do." Eleanor said goodbye and hung up.

"I have to get cleaned up," she said to herself. "But I have to be there to take care of them if they wake up! What should I do?"

Then she got an idea. She raced up to the attic and rooted around in an old tub before she found what she was looking for.

"The baby monitor!" she exclaimed. "Dave used this on the boys a lot when he first got them, I remember him telling us all about it."

She turned them both on to make sure that they worked, and then she put one in the bedroom with the four sleeping chipmunks and took the other one to the bathroom with her. She took a hot bath and cleaned herself before putting on bandages. She put burn medicine on her wrists and bandaged both of them to be on the safe side before brushing out her hair and changing her clothes.

She looked at the pile of clothes that she had thrown into the hamper from each of the five chipmunks. They were all dirty and had rips and holes in them.

"We might have to get rid of those," Eleanor sighed. "It's a good thing we all have extras."

Just then, she heard a noise from the baby monitor. She rushed into the room. Brittany had woken up.

"Are you okay?" Eleanor asked quietly as she climbed up onto her sister's bed.

"What…happened?" Brittany murmured, trying to focus on her sister. The ice pack on her arm slipped slightly, and Eleanor adjusted it.

"Just stay still," she advised her sister. "It'll hurt more if you move around."

Brittany obediently laid back on the pillow.

"I'll explain later, when everyone's woken up," Eleanor told her in a quiet voice.

"Is everyone okay?" Brittany murmured dizzily.

"Yes, they're fine," Eleanor decided to lie. She didn't want her sister to get agitated in this state. "They're just asleep. How's your arm feeling?"

"It feels kind of better than before, in the bath," Brittany said slowly, "but it still hurts."

"Hang on," Eleanor said. "I'm going to get you some Motrin and some water. It should help. Now, don't move," she added firmly. "I'll be right back." She scampered out of the room and got two Motrin painkiller pills and a bottle of water. Brittany swallowed the pills and drank over half the water bottle before giving it back to her sister and rolling over to sleep again.

Just then, Eleanor heard the front door open. She raced down the stairs and saw Dave come in.

"We should get them to the hospital," he told her. "We have to make sure that nothing is seriously wrong with them."

He hurried up the stairs with Eleanor scampering just in front of him. She hurried around the room, packing her first-aid kit with bandages, Neosporin, water, Motrin, and Band-aids just in case any of them woke up on the car ride there or something. Dave gently moved each of them, including their pillows, to the car, making sure none of the ice packs or bandages were moved. Once he moved the last one—Theodore—Eleanor grabbed her kit and hurried out to the car after him.

She stretched the long seatbelt over all four pillows, making sure no one was jostled. Then she strapped herself in next to them, ready in case one of them woke up. None did, though, and they were at the hospital soon.

Dave carried all four in and got them into the emergency room as fast as he could.

"Whoever took care of these chipmunks did a very good job," the nurse commented to Dave as she checked over the medicine, ice packs, and bandages to make sure they were all applied properly. They were. "We'll have to check them over and make sure that nothing is seriously wrong with them. You'll have to come, too, young lady," the nurse added, looking down at Eleanor and smiling kindly at her.

"Me?" Eleanor was surprised. "There's nothing wrong with me."

"They'll just check your wrists and make sure that nothing is seriously wrong," Dave assured Eleanor. "You've worked very hard all evening, Eleanor, and you must be tired. You should get some rest."

Eleanor admitted that it did sound nice. After the long battle, and then taking care of her siblings, she was very tired. She followed the nurse, who put her in a hospital bed next to Brittany's. Yawning, she curled up on the pillow, tugged the blankets over her body, and fell asleep almost instantly.

Brittany moaned and stirred. She felt comfortable, but vaguely pained. Her head was throbbing horribly, and her arm was killing her.

She looked down and saw that her arm was in a cast. Her head was bandaged with an ice pack on it, and she was covered in Band-Aids and bruises.

She frowned. Something in her subconscious was telling her that something was wrong.

_Where am I? _she wondered. _Where are the others? Is everyone else okay? What happened to me?_

She looked down and saw that she was in a hospital bed. She frowned a little bit when she saw a miniscule IV stuck in her arm, but she kept looking around. She was in a hospital room. Was it the emergency room? She had no way of telling.

She turned her head to her left and saw her sister Eleanor sitting on a hospital bed next to her, not moving, eyes closed. She panicked, but then she realized, upon closer examination, that her sister seemed fine. She sighed and relaxed a little when she saw that Eleanor was just sleeping. There seemed to be a type of salve on her wrists, but other than that, she seemed completely unharmed.

Brittany settled back. She looked around, but she didn't see anyone else.

_Where's Jeanette? Is my other sister here, too? What about Alvin and the boys?_

Eleanor stirred and stretched. She rolled over, blinking her wide green eyes sleepily. Then she saw Brittany and her face split into a smile.

"You're awake!" she cried, sitting up. "Are you all right, Britt?"

"I think so," Brittany said cautiously. Her voice sounded very raspy.

Eleanor offered her a water bottle, and she took a grateful gulp.

When she put it down, she quickly began asking questions. "What happened to me? What happened to _you? _Where are the others? Is everyone okay? What—,"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down!" Eleanor laughed. "One question at a time."

Brittany smiled sheepishly.

"We're at the veterinary hospital," Eleanor explained. "The boys are in the other room together. They should all be okay, but I don't know, I haven't heard yet. I'm sure they'll be fine, though," she assured her sister as Brittany cringed. "I looked over all of them, and besides getting hit really hard in the head, I don't think anything is wrong with any of them. I'm fairly sure at least Alvin will be okay, because he woke up for a few minutes after those guys left, to untie me."

"Wait, what guys?" Brittany frowned. "Why were you tied up?" Then something dawned on her. "Wait a minute, where's Jeanette?"

Eleanor fidgeted and looked down. "What do you remember, Brittany?" Eleanor asked her quietly.

Brittany frowned and searched her memory hard. "I…um…Ryan was bullying her earlier that day…and Alvin and I came…and Simon didn't like her sleeping downstairs, but she did…and…" She frowned. "Um, I think that Dave was gone."

"Yes," Eleanor said quietly. "Do you remember what happened after that?"

Brittany shook her head. "I think we went to bed, but all I remember is waking up in the hospital."

"Maybe you got hit on the head harder than we thought," Eleanor said quietly. "Don't you remember, Britt?" She sighed. "Adam came back. We heard Simon yelling, and then we came downstairs. That chipmunk—,"

Brittany gasped. Her memories came flooding back, and she slumped back on her pillow as the memory replayed itself.

_"Jeanette? Jeanette!"_

_ Brittany moaned groggily as she pulled the pillow over her head._

_ "JEANETTE!"_

_ There were muffled screams and shouts from downstairs, mingled with Simon yelling as he sprang out of bed and raced for the door. _

_**Jeanette! Jeanette's in trouble, **__Brittany thought, and she was out of bed in an instant. Eleanor, Alvin, and Theodore were out of bed, too, and they all ran down the stairs as fast as they could in time to see Adam knock Simon into the wall. Jeanette was screaming and being dragged toward the door by two chipmunks dressed entirely in black. _

_**Jeanette!**_

_ Alvin sprang for her, but another chipmunk came out of nowhere, grabbed him, and threw him into the wall. _

_ Brittany screamed and ran over to Alvin, but then she felt something grab her arm and twist it. She screamed again, in pain this time, and then got yanked backwards away from Alvin. She fought against him as hard as she could, but every movement jostled her injured arm and sent another wave of pain over her. She watched Eleanor get tied to the table and Theodore get buried in the sink by dirty dishes._

_ Then she saw Jeanette get yanked out the door. "JEANETTE!" Brittany screamed._

_ Then she heard Adam's voice at the door. "RETREAT, 'MUNKS!"_

_ Without warning, the chipmunk holding Brittany threw her over his head. She hurtled straight toward the window and the last thing she remembered feeling was pain._

"Oh, no," Brittany whispered. "Jeanette…"

Eleanor nodded solemnly. "Simon went after them," she whispered, "but he was too late…they have Jeanette now."

Brittany sighed and her eyes filled with tears. "We just don't seem to be able to protect her very well, do we?"

"Hey, I think we put up a good fight," Eleanor said, shrugging. "Those were trained ninja chipmunks. We didn't stand a chance. And we'll go rescue her. Don't worry."

"How are we going to find her?" Brittany asked desperately.

"I don't know, but we'll do it somehow," Eleanor said firmly. "We found her once when she was taken away from us, and we can find her again." She shuddered slightly. "Besides, if we see The Return of Callie on television, then we'll know right where to look, won't we?"

"He wouldn't do that…would he?" Brittany whispered.

"Yes, he would," Eleanor nodded to herself. "That's the reason he took her. He just wants Callie back."

"But we want Jeanette back," Brittany said stubbornly.

"He isn't going to see it that way," Eleanor said sadly.

"Yeah, you're right," Brittany sighed. She rolled over and sighed again.

Just then, the nurse came in. "Hi, Brittany," she said cheerfully. "I'm glad that you finally woke up!" She bustled over and checked the little chipmunk all over. "Does your cast feel all right?" she asked the chipette, and Brittany nodded.

"All right, then," the nurse said, disconnecting the IV. "It looks like you two ladies are free to go."

"What about the boys?" Brittany asked, pushing herself into a sitting position with her good arm.

"I wasn't the nurse that was scheduled to check on them, so I don't know when they'll be released," she informed them. "I would guess that it will be soon, though."

She opened the door for the chipmunks, and they scurried out into the hall. Dave was waiting for them.

"Hi, guys," he said, smiling at them as they both let out little cries of delight and bounded forward to give him a hug. He looked up at the nurse.

"Just do what you had done before you took them here," the nurse told him. "Bandages, ice packs, medicine. They should be fine soon. Bring Brittany back in three weeks to get her cast removed."

"Three weeks?" Brittany wailed.

"Wow, that's good," Eleanor said, impressed. "Must have just been a hairline fracture, Britt. Most casts take almost six or seven weeks."

"SEVEN?" Brittany's mouth dropped open.

"Let's go get the boys," Dave said hurriedly.


	4. Chapter 4

** Hello!**

** And…I have nothing to say except thank you to all the people who reviewed my story! I really appreciate it.**

** And onto chapter four!**

Jeanette groggily opened her eyes, trying to figure out where she was. Everything was dark and chilly. Why wasn't she in bed?

Then everything came flooding back to her when she looked up and saw the bars.

She shivered on the floor of her cage. _Simon…Britt…Ellie…where are you guys? What happened? Are you in cages, too?_

It appeared to be a cat carrier, and Jeanette grimaced at the irony. All she had done since being turned into Callie was get shoved into cat carriers. How stupid.

She remembered getting caught and dragged out of the room. She remembered them pushing her into some sort of nylon sack, and she was thrown into a car. She pushed on the sack as hard as she could, but it didn't open, and she realized that they had tied the top shut. She thought she heard an engine, and after what seemed like hours and hours, she had finally fallen asleep.

She stretched and held back a groan. "Why didn't I stay awake?" she muttered to herself. "Maybe then I'd know where I am."

She sighed. Before she had fallen asleep, her entire world had been the inside of that sack. She doubted she would know where she was even if she had been wide awake the entire time.

She crawled to the front of the cat carrier and looked around. She didn't see any other cages in the room. She didn't see much of anything. She relaxed and felt somewhat relieved. Simon, her sisters, the boys…they were all safe. She winced as she remembered Theodore being pushed into the sink, Brittany being thrown through the window, Alvin crashing through the counter…were they all right? Was Simon all right? She hadn't seen what had happened to him.

Just then the door creaked open, flooding the room with light.

"Is she in here?" The squeaky voice clearly belonged to a chipmunk, but it was accented oddly and Jeanette didn't recognize it. She thought it sounded female.

"Yes, she's right over there. Did you get it for me?"

Jeanette stiffened, and a low hiss slid through her teeth.

Adam.

There was a long silence, and then she heard Adam chuckle.

"Yes," the accented chipmunk said quietly. "I got it."

"Good," Adam said. "I'll come to get you soon."

"Thank you," the other chipmunk said, and there was a rustling noise before she left the room.

Adam approached the cat carrier, and Jeanette backed away, curling into a ball in the corner. He opened the door and light flooded in. She flinched away from it.

"Hello again, Jeanette," he sneered.

She was quaking ferociously, but she tried to sound brave. "Wh—where's Simon?" she asked.

Adam sneered. "I don't know," he said. "My guess? In the hospital. I'm not sure how hard I kicked him." He smirked. "My bad."

Jeanette felt an icy rush sweep her body from her toes to her head. Simon…in the hospital?

"You hurt him," she whispered, and fury gave her strength. With a strangled screech, she flung herself at Adam and knocked him into the ground. Only when a chipmunk dressed in black slammed into her side did she abandon her attempt to scratch every inch of Adam that she could reach. She crashed hard into a rack of test tubes, and one of them spilled on her, glowing slightly before vanishing. She shook it off and sprang at Adam again, but the guards ran to grab her again.

"You just had to come back and ruin everything again, didn't you?" she spat at Adam as the two chipmunks hauled her off of him. "I guess that's what you're best at, isn't it?"

He glared at her as he got to his feet. "That," he said, "was a big mistake." Then he grinned and held up a plastic container. "But it's all right," he continued. "You won't remember it."

She peered closer, and then she let out a gasp, her purple eyes flying wide open.

Inside was a spider.

A spider that had the venom in it.

The venom that turned her into Callie.

Before she knew what was going on, she was being pushed into a chair and strapped down.

"No," she gasped. "No, no, no, no, no, no…"

"I want Callie back," he hissed.

And then the spider bit her.

She waited for herself to become unconscious, and then yanked from her being, pulled away from the controls to her mind, caged and trapped in the darkest corner of Callie, where she would barely exist anymore, and where she wouldn't remember a thing.

Simon…

_Simon, I love you, _she thought, bracing herself for the end.

But nothing happened.

She frowned as the spider scuttled off of her and across the floor. It was quickly trapped and put back in the container by one of the ninja chipmunks.

"Nothing is happening," she whispered.

"It will," Adam said, but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. "It'll…it'll probably just take some time."  
"No," Jeanette said, a bit louder. "Last time, it happened straightaway. I just blacked out, and then I began to change." She suppressed a shiver and tried not to think about it. "It only took about five minutes for me to change, and it only took about two hours for Callie to wake up."

Adam stared at her. "This can't be happening," he muttered. "There's been some sort of mistake…"

Jeanette was equally confused, but she managed a biting remark anyway. "Sure. The spider just ran out of venom."

"Do NOT mess with me, Jeanette Miller," Adam snarled at her.

She glared at him.

"Put her back," he snapped at two of the chipmunks. "We have to figure this out."

They unstrapped her from the chair, grabbed her arms, and yanked her back across the room, pushing her into the cage again.

She felt an immense surge of relief even as she sat huddled there, but she couldn't help but feel curious.

_What happened?_

"Simon? Simon, wake up."

Simon moaned and opened his eyes blearily.

Sitting above him with a worried expression was Theodore.

Theodore didn't look too good. He had a lot of bruises and his head and leg were bandaged. But he looked worried about Simon.

"What happened?" Simon muttered.

Theodore's eyes filled with tears. "Adam…"

In a flash, everything came flooding back. Simon squeezed his eyes shut and moaned.

"He took her, didn't he?" He knew the answer. "He took Jeanette."

"Yes," Theodore whispered miserably. "I'm so sorry, Simon."

"Where are the others?" Simon demanded. "Are they okay?"

"I'm not sure," Theodore shrugged. He was still remembering what had happened…

_ "Jeanette? Jeanette!"_

_ Simon was yelling. That was never a good thing. Simon rarely yelled. Theodore felt groggy, but he forced himself to sit up to try and figure out what was going on. _

_ He heard muffled shouting and thumps from downstairs, and in a flash, he realized. Something was wrong. _

_**Eleanor. **__She was his first priority. He instantly glanced over and saw, to his relief, that she was still in bed and fine. Then he tried to figure out what was going on. _

_ "JEANETTE!" Simon was running out the door, and in a flash, Theodore remembered. His sister was downstairs, alone. _

_ She wasn't really his sister, of course, but that's how he saw her. He felt panicked, and he jumped out of bed and raced downstairs after Simon and Eleanor. _

_ He landed in the living room and saw all the chipmunks dressed in black. __**Something's wrong, **__he thought urgently, and then he saw Jeanette being yanked out the door. _

_ Frightened, he tried to look around and find Eleanor, to see if she was being kidnapped, too, but she was fine. She was trying to go after Jeanette. _

_ Then Theodore saw a black-clad chipmunk spring at him. He let out a yelp and dove to the side, springing up into the air and grabbing ahold of the counter. He pulled himself up with some difficulty and then perched there, trying to figure out what was happening. He winced as he saw Alvin get thrown into the wall, and he suppressed a cry when Brittany was pulled away from him. He thought that her arm might have been broken. _

_ Then he heard a shout from below and looked down. He saw Eleanor being thrown into the table, and he let out a cry of alarm, but she didn't seem severely injured. Then he watched helplessly as she got tied to the table leg. _

_ He tried to leap down and go after her, but a chipmunk all dressed in black sprang up on the counter next to him. Theodore fought him for a bit, holding his own, but the chipmunk shoved him backwards. Theodore toppled into the sink. _

_ The last thing he saw was a very large mound of dishes flying toward his face._

Theodore sighed and brought himself back to the present. He had been visited by Eleanor when he woke up earlier, and she had told him what had happened and had informed him, rather sadly, that Jeanette had been taken. Theodore was very sad to hear the news, but he was glad that no one was severely hurt.

Alvin hadn't woken up yet, and Simon just did. Simon looked very, very sad now.

"We'll find her, Si," Theodore said quietly. "Don't worry about it."

Simon nodded and rolled over in the hospital bed, clearly not wanting to say anything more.

_"Jeanette? Jeanette!"_

_**Is he having another nightmare again? **__Alvin thought irritably as he heard his brother yelling._

_ "JEANETTE!"_

_**I'd better go and wake him up, **__Alvin thought with a sigh as he pushed himself groggily into a sitting position. It was then that he saw his brother racing out the door. _

_**He's already awake? **__Alvin was confused. __**Maybe he's going to check on Jeanette…**_

___That train of thought was instantly disbanded as he heard the screams and thuds coming from downstairs. _

_**Jeanette! She's in trouble…for real!**_

_** BRITTANY!**_

___Alvin instantly looked over, but Brittany was all right. She was getting out of bed and racing after Simon as fast as she could. Alvin did the same thing, just behind Theodore and Eleanor. _

_ They all made it downstairs, and then Alvin saw Jeanette pinned to the floor. Then he saw Adam in the middle of the room, throwing Simon into the wall. _

_ Alvin instantly let out a snarl and sprang at one of the chipmunks dressed in black, using his football training to tackle the chipmunk to the floor. The chipmunk, however, shoved Alvin off of him and into the counter._

_ Alvin hit the counter with a sickening thud, and everything began to slide in and out of focus. He heard Brittany scream his name, and managed to drive the blurriness away as she ran to his side and crouched down next to him. He tried to shout a warning when he saw another black-clad chipmunk run up behind her, but he couldn't say a word—the wind had been knocked out of him. The chipmunk grabbed her arm and twisted it, hard, so that she let out a shriek, and then the chipmunk yanked her away from Alvin. He tried to get up and go after her, but another chipmunk sprang up and pinned him to the floor._

_**How many are there?**_

___Just then, he heard Adam shout from the door, and the chipmunk holding him smashed his foot hard into the side of Alvin's head._

_ Everything went black…_

_ "Alvin. Alvin, you have to get over here."_

_ Alvin tried to focus as hard as he could. He couldn't remember anything. What had happened? Why did everything hurt so much?_

_ He saw Eleanor, tied to the table leg. _

_**How did that happen?**_

___He couldn't focus. He was so tired._

_ "Want…to…sleep," he told her with some difficulty._

_ "You can sleep, just as soon as you chew through this rope on my hands." Her voice sounded very far away. "Can you do that, Alvin? Please. Please, just chew through this rope, and then you can do whatever you want. Please, Alvin. Please."_

_ Alvin tried to stand, tried to walk, but he couldn't. He couldn't even crawl. But he began to drag himself across the kitchen floor toward Eleanor. He couldn't remember a thing that had happened in the past ten minutes, but there was a small part of his subconscious that was telling him that it was urgent that Eleanor was freed. _

_ It took him so long, and it hurt so much, but he managed to get over to her. With massive effort, he raised his aching head and started to chew. _

_ He had to stop and rest his head on his paws several times, but he finally got it so that it began to fray. He vaguely saw Eleanor push herself forward, barely saw the rope snap. He didn't care anymore. He just…wanted…to sleep…_

Alvin let out a gasp and opened his eyes. The bright lights spun dizzily above him, and he quickly squeezed them shut again.

_I'm in the hospital, _he quickly realized, nowhere as vague and dizzy as he had been when he had woken up in the house with Eleanor. _So none of that was a dream, then…they took Jeanette, and everyone…Brittany! Simon! Theodore! What happened to them?_

Fury overtook him as he remembered how the chipmunk in black had grabbed Brittany, how he had yanked her away from Alvin, how he had twisted her arm so hard Alvin thought he had heard a snapping noise. Alvin gritted his teeth. If Brittany was hurt in any way, those chipmunks were going to _pay._

Just then, the door creaked open quietly. Alvin looked up and saw Eleanor scamper in the room.

"Hi, Eleanor," he said softly.

"Alvin!" she cried. "Oh, you're awake." She hurried to hop up on the bed. "Brittany will be so happy."

"How long have I been out?" he wondered aloud.

She shrugged. "Not sure, exactly. I think it's been a day or two. You were the last one to wake up." She let out a little giggle. "I was expecting that, though. You woke up earlier, when you helped me, so I thought you'd be sleeping for a bit longer than the others would." She flashed a grin at him. "I'm glad you did wake up, though, or you guys would all still be passed out and I'd still be tied to the table."

Alvin smiled slightly. "What happened to Brittany," he asked quietly, "after I got knocked out?"

Eleanor's smile faded slightly. "Um…nothing, they just knocked her over," she told him. Her eyes were wide and innocent.

Too innocent.

"Eleanor, I know that you're lying. _Tell me what happened."_

Eleanor winced and took a step back. "Um…she told me not to tell you," she whispered. "She said it would make you mad…"

"Who?" Alvin tried not to yell.

"Britt."

"Eleanor, TELL me what happened, or so HELP me…"

"I'm going to go get Dave," she said quickly, and she turned to go.

Alvin lunged for her so fast she didn't see him coming and managed to grab onto her tail. She let out a yelp and fell onto the bed.

"Let go, Alvin!" she cried, her paws scrabbling helplessly on the sheets.

"Not until you tell me what happened," he snapped. "To EVERYONE."

"Aw, Alvin, it's just going to make you upset!" Eleanor whined, trying unsuccessfully to free herself. "The doctor said not to get you excited—,"

"I'm not going to let you go until you tell me what happened," Alvin said firmly.

She fought against his grip for a moment longer, and then sighed and relaxed in defeat. "Fine," she said miserably. "If you let go of me, I'll tell you."

"Not a chance. Tell me now, or I'm not letting go."

"Okay, fine!" she snapped. "Have it your way. We got downstairs when we heard Jeanette yelling—,"

"I was here for this part," Alvin began, but Eleanor talked over him.

"You weren't aware for most of it, Alvin. You wanted to know what happened, so don't fight with me." She continued before he had a chance to retort. "We got downstairs when we heard Jeanette yelling. Adam was there with six other chipmunks. Two of them had Jeanette pinned to the floor. Adam threw Simon into the wall, and Simon hit him back and tried to go after Jeanette. Then you tackled one of the chipmunks, but he got you off of him and threw you into the counter." Eleanor closed her eyes. This would be the hard part.

She sighed slightly and continued. "Brittany ran over to try to help, but another one of the attackers grabbed her arm and pulled her away from you."

She was about to keep going, but Alvin saw the flicker in her eye. "What happened?" he asked through gritted teeth.

She winced. "He broke her arm," she mumbled.

"WHAT?" Alvin screamed, outraged.

"Alvin, just let me finish before you spaz out," Eleanor begged.

Glaring, he sank back down onto the pillow and gestured for her to continue.

"Then one of them tied me to the table, so I couldn't do anything," Eleanor continued. "Another one was on the counter with Theodore, and he pushed Theo into the sink and knocked all the dishes down on him." She winced along with Alvin. "He was out for a while, because he got hit on the head with a cup pretty hard, one of the glass ones. And his leg is bruised pretty badly. Other than that, he should be all right." She hurried on with her tale. "So then Adam called for them to retreat, and then the one holding you knocked you out and ran. The ones dealing with me and Theo did, too. And the other one holding Brittany, he—knocked her over and ran, too. Simon followed them out, but he wasn't able to get to Jeanette and I found him out cold on the street later."

Alvin wasn't fooled. He had heard just the slightest pause in her voice when she was talking about Brittany being knocked over, and he didn't buy it for a second.

"What did he REALLY do to Brittany?" he asked her.

She bit her lip.

"ELEANOR!"

"Ouch!" she cried as he tugged on her tail accidentally.

"Hey, let go of her!" a voice at the door yelled, and Theodore sprang up on the bed and managed to get Eleanor's tail out of his grasp. She tumbled forward, sprawling on the bed with a gasp. Alvin felt guilty when he saw that she wasn't able to catch herself because her wrists were all bandaged.

Theodore quickly helped her up. "Are you all right?" he asked her.

Brittany and Simon scampered in, too. Alvin growled when he saw that Brittany's arm was in a miniature, chipmunk-sized cast.

"They BROKE your ARM?" he shouted.

She froze, and then turned her icy glare on her sister. "You SAID you weren't going to tell him!" she hissed.

"He made me!" Eleanor wailed. "It's not my fault, Britt!"

"Whatever," Theodore said with a shrug. "He would have noticed the hole in the window when we got home, any—," Eleanor gasped and clamped a paw over her counterpart's mouth, but it was too late.

Eleanor winced as Alvin slowly turned to stare at Brittany. "Britt…I didn't tell him that part," she mumbled.

Brittany's eyes widened and she shot an accusing glare at Theodore.

"What…part?" Alvin asked, enunciating every word.

Brittany thought as fast as she could. "One of the chipmunks was trying to hurt me," she said quickly. "And he threw Dave's baseball at me—,"

Alvin gasped. That baseball was big and heavy for a HUMAN, so it would definitely severely injure or even kill a chipmunk.

"But he missed," Brittany said as fast as she could, "and it went through the window instead. That's all that Theodore was trying to say." She turned to stare at Theodore. "Right, Theo?"

He nodded quickly, going along with it.

Alvin stared at her suspiciously.

"I'm okay, though, really," she said quickly. "He didn't hit me. Dave's going to want to pay for that window, though…"

Alvin knew that she was lying, but he didn't know what she was lying about. He pretended to go along with it as he said, "Well, if that's all…am I seriously hurt?"

"No, you just have a bad bump on your head," Eleanor assured him. "You aren't supposed to make any sudden movements, any of you, which means that Dave and I are going to be caring for you guys for a couple of days."

"A COUPLE OF DAYS?" Simon yelled, and everyone jumped in shock. Simon never yelled.

"Um…yeah?" Eleanor said uncertainly, and it sounded like a question.

"We don't have time for a COUPLE OF DAYS!" he said furiously. "We have to go and rescue Jeanette NOW!"

"Well, if you're all banged up and can barely move, you're not going to be doing a lot of rescuing, anyway," Eleanor snapped.

He sighed and slumped dejectedly down.

"We WILL find her, Simon," Eleanor said firmly. "We just have to do some healing ourselves before we go running off, or else WE might get kidnapped, too. And then who's going to save Jeanette?"

Simon saw the logic in this and reluctantly nodded.

"Okay, Alvin, we're going to head home, but try not to make any sudden movements," Brittany told him.

He nodded and hopped down off the bed, secretly formulating a plan in his mind. He landed on the floor and pretended to stumble slightly. He grabbed his head and let out a moan, but he was really faking it.

Brittany hurried over to help him, and he grabbed her arm with the pretense of pulling himself up. Then, before she knew what he was doing, he had pushed her sleeve up and exposed her arm.

Everyone stood like that for a few seconds in horrified silence, and then Brittany had the sense to yank her arm away. But Alvin had already seen. Her arms, and her legs, were covered in deep scratches.

"How on earth did THAT happen?" he said slowly.

Brittany winced. "Um…I…tripped?" She knew it wasn't going to work before the words were out of her mouth.

Alvin looked at her, one eyebrow raised. "Tripping doesn't cause scratches like THAT," he said slowly. "Only concrete, or thorns or…"

His eyes bugged out. Brittany winced.

"…or glass," he finished.

"We should probably go and get Dave now," Eleanor said quickly, but Alvin exploded before she could make it two steps.

_"HE THREW YOU THROUGH A WINDOW?!" _he screamed.

"Yeah," Simon said lifelessly.

"Simon!" Brittany hissed.

"Britt, he was going to find out, anyway," Simon retorted. He turned to Alvin, and Alvin relaxed ever so slightly. He knew that he could rely on Simon to give him the straight truth.

"They broke her arm when they were pulling her away from you," he told Alvin in a monotone. "Then they kicked you and knocked you out, and the one holding Brittany threw her through the window. She got a concussion and is really scratched up—and falling into that thorny bush right outside the window did not help matters," he added as an afterthought.

Brittany glared at Simon. "Thanks," she muttered sarcastically. "Thanks a whole lot, Simon."

"I am going to MURDER all of them with my BARE HANDS," Alvin snarled.

"You don't have hands," Theodore pointed out.

"Paws, then! Whatever!" Alvin glared. "Okay, now I agree with Simon. We have to go NOW."

Brittany walked over and put her paw on his shoulder. "Alvin, look at me. Look at me right now."

He stared at her, and softened slightly under her gaze.

"I am fine," she said, enunciating every word. "I'm going to heal. I will be okay. They hurt me, yes, and I have no doubt in my mind that you are going to take care of them for me. But we have to wait until we're all better first." She squeezed his shoulder slightly. "And if you don't care in the least about YOUR welfare, then at least care about mine, because I don't want to go until I'M feeling better."

Alvin stared at her for a long moment, and then he finally nodded.

"And you need to stay calm," Brittany added. "Worse things have happened."

Alvin nodded again. "I'm still going to murder them, though," he muttered after a pause.

Brittany rolled her eyes. "Sure. Whatever. That's fine."


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello!**

** And…I don't have anything to say.**

** ON TO CHAPTER FIVE!**

Eleanor wobbled slightly under the tray of hot soup that she was carrying. There were five heavy bowls on it, and she stumbled slightly on the stairs, but managed to catch herself.

"You okay, Ellie?" Brittany called from the bedroom.

"I'm fine," Eleanor huffed, slightly out of breath. "The tray is just kind of heavy…"

"Oh! I'll come help you with it, Ellie!" Theodore chirped.

Eleanor scowled as she got to the top of the stairs. "Theodore Seville, you stay right where you are!" she snapped, stumbling slightly again and regaining her balance. "You know perfectly well that I can handle this tray all by myself. You're just looking for an excuse to get up, and the doctor specifically said to stay in bed."

She heard Theodore "humph" as she called him out, and she couldn't resist smiling slightly as she came into the room with the soup. She handed a bowl each to Simon, Alvin, Brittany, and Theodore, each one stretched out on their own bed and each one looking exceptionally bored. Eleanor grabbed the last bowl and clambered into her own bed.

"Thanks, Ellie," Theodore called down to her, smiling as he prodded the chicken noodle soup. Everyone else thanked her, and she smiled in return.

"So, how are we going to find Jeanette?" Alvin asked once they had all gotten situated.

"Well, we haven't got any way of finding her," Brittany said glumly as she stirred the tomato soup. (Eleanor had gotten each chipmunk their favorite.) "We don't know where Adam took her, and we don't have any way of following them."

"As much as I hate to admit it, Brittany's right," Alvin said sadly, poking his beef stew before spooning some of it up.

"We don't have any way of finding Jeanette, and who KNOWS what they're doing to her?" Simon cried in frustration.

"We know exactly what they're doing to her, don't we?" Brittany snapped back, taking a small bite out of a slice of tomato. "He's going to turn her back into Callie and make her his minion."

The others fully expected Simon to get dejected and miserable, but to their astonishment, he said briskly, "Oh, that isn't going to be a problem," as he picked up his spoon and slurped up his vegetable soup. Carrots and peas bobbed to the surface next to the small chunks of meat.

"What do you mean?" Eleanor frowned as she ate some chicken noodle soup—she and Theodore had the same favorite.

"Remember the cure I injected in her last time to get her to change back?" Simon asked them.

They all nodded.

"That was also filled with a special substance that will protect her immune system from changing or getting affected at all. It's enhanced her white blood cells to fight off the venom that gets into her system, so if she gets another spider bite, nothing is going to happen."

They all breathed a sigh of relief.

"I didn't know that!" Brittany exclaimed. Relief flooded through her, and she slurped up her next spoonful of soup with her good hand with much more enthusiasm. Her appetite was beginning to come back to her.

"That's one more thing that we don't need to worry about," Alvin agreed, gnawing on a piece of beef.

"That doesn't change much, though," Simon told them realistically. "We don't know where she is, and we don't know how to find her." He sighed as he took another spoonful of the soup.

He slumped back on his pillow…and his hand hit his cell phone.

He frowned slightly and pulled it out from under the covers. It was then that he noticed that it was blinking.

He unlocked it and typed in his password and he looked at the notification.

_Jeanette15 has moved out of approximate fifty-mile target, _it read. _Locate?_

Simon let out a gasp.

"GUYS!" he yelled, causing Alvin to jump and Brittany to nearly spill tomato soup down her front.

"Watch it!" she growled. "Tomato soup stains badly!"

"But I know how to find Jeanette!" he cried.

"WHAT?" everyone chorused, instantly pushing their soup to the side and sitting bolt upright.

Simon held up his phone as he punched in a few keys. "I have a GPS on her!" he said excitedly. "The app is programmed in my phone. It's just a really tiny chip, and I installed it in her glasses when she was sleeping. The phone can locate her, anywhere she is! We can find her! We can save her!"

He triumphantly held up the phone and it showed coordinates.

"Ellie, go get a piece of paper and a pencil!" Brittany cried suddenly.

"Why?" Eleanor frowned.

"Just hurry!"

Eleanor jumped off of her bed and scampered from the room, coming back with a piece of paper and a pencil.

"Write down the address and the coordinates, hurry!" Brittany said urgently.

Eleanor did so as fast as she could.

"Why did I just write those down?" Eleanor asked when she was done.

"Something might happen to the GPS in Jeanette's glasses," Brittany explained. "Her glasses might get broken, or they might even discover the chip and destroy it. If that happens, we won't have the coordinates or the address anymore, and we won't remember where to find her. This way, we've got it on paper in case something happens to it."

"Good thinking, Britt," Simon said, typing furiously into the keypad. "I'm going to save the location onto my phone, too, just in case."

Everyone felt much more cheerful and lighthearted as they dug back into their soup. They knew where they were going now. They had a plan. The situation didn't look as hopeless as it had before.

"All right, so when are we going?" Simon asked briskly after he'd finished his vegetable soup.

Eleanor put her spoon aside. She hadn't finished with hers yet, but it could wait. She hopped out of her bed and put her hands on her hips. "After you four heal!" she snapped.

"ELEANOR!" everyone chorused.

"We are getting nowhere in this expedition if you haven't completely healed, all four of you," she said firmly. "You got very beat up, and it's going to take a while to recover. That's just the way it is. Do you want to get kidnapped, too? Then who's going to save Jeanette?"

Everyone grumbled incomprehensibly to themselves. They saw the logic in her explanation, but they didn't want to see the logic.

"Oh, stop your whining," Eleanor snapped. "I don't like it, either, but we're not getting anywhere if you guys aren't feeling better. Now everyone, finish your soup, PLEASE!"

Everyone, still mumbling to themselves, finished their soup.

"THANK you!" she huffed, glaring at them all. "You know, I am TRYING to look after you all and help you heal, but it's a bit hard when you're all being so difficult!"

At this, the chipmunks and Brittany all felt ashamed, even Alvin.

"We're sorry, Ellie," Theodore told her quietly.

"You're doing a great job caring for us, Ellie, and we really appreciate it," Britt told her.

Eleanor couldn't help but smile as she went around the room and stacked the now-empty bowls back up on the tray. She hurried out of the room.

Simon was typing things into his phone. He was thinking and theorizing, planning and making arrangements in his head for everything that had to be done.

He pulled out the GPS app again to check exactly where she was.

He frowned and blinked.

_That can't be right, _he thought.

But it was.

He frowned. "Guys?" he called.

They all looked up.

"He's got Jeanette on…" Simon cleared his throat and tried again. "He's got Jeanette on an _island."_

They all froze for a minute, and then Brittany flopped backwards onto her pillow.

"Great," she snarled. "That's just dandy. Because we totally haven't had enough of islands in the past."

"It's not the same one that we were shipwrecked on," Simon told her, frowning and squinting at it.

"Of course not," Alvin said, playing on his DS game. "The volcano on that one erupted, right? The whole thing is covered in lava and ash and rocks."

They all shivered at that statement.

"Actually," Simon continued, "this one must be a lot smaller than the other one, or Adam's got her in some underwater lair, because it's not even on the map."

"I'm sure there's an island there," Brittany said quickly before everyone could start offering ridiculous theories.

"But…look at all these rocks around here!" Simon cried. "We can't bring a steamship. It won't work."

"So we bring a sailing ship," Theodore said calmly. "That would be small enough."

"A sailing ship?" Brittany freaked. "Do they even USE those anymore? Those ships are practically ancient! And do you know how long it takes for them to get from place to place?"

"Look," Simon snapped, holding the phone up. "Theo's right, they do still have those…and I'm sure we can find one somewhere that will work for us. As for the distance thing…we live in Massachusetts, right?"

They all nodded.

"We're right on the coast, aren't we?"

They all nodded again.

He pointed to the small light indicating where Jeanette was. "That is just off the coast of Massachusetts."

They all frowned.

"It will still take almost three weeks to get there," Eleanor chimed in from the doorway where she had been listening.

"That's perfect!" Brittany cried.

"It is?" Simon frowned, who didn't like the idea of having to wait that long.

"Look," Brittany said excitedly. "It's going to take three weeks for us to heal, right? And another three for us to get there. That's over a month, Eleanor. We don't have that much time."

Eleanor started to say something, but Alvin cut her off. "I get what Brittany's saying!" he cried. "We get the ship now and heal ON THE SHIP! If we stay in our beds, or cabins or whatever they're called, and rest and heal and do everything you tell us to, then by the time we get to where Jeanette's being held, we'll BE healed, and we'll only delay her rescue by the original three weeks that we'd planned."

They were all silent as they digested this plan.

"All right, listen." Eleanor's hands were on her hips. Then she let out a sigh and glared at all of them. "Do you PROMISE to not get out of your beds in your cabins?"

"Yes," they all chorused, sensing a "yes" coming soon.

"Do you PROMISE to not move at all and rest and heal?"

"Yes!"

"Do you PROMISE to drink every bit of medicine that I give you, swallow every pill, no matter how disgusting-tasting it is, and NOT COMPLAIN?"

The "yes" was a bit more unenthusiastic that time, but it was there.

Eleanor sighed and dropped her hands in defeat. "Fine, fine. We'll do that."

They all cheered.

Jeanette sighed glumly as she stared at nothing.

She had been here for so long and nothing was getting better. In fact, things were getting worse.

She flopped back onto her queen-sized, plushy, soft, purple canopy bed and stared at the top, feeling more miserable than she had when they had crammed her in a cat carrier. She looked down at the soft purple dress she was wearing and felt more uncomfortable than she had in her torn, dirty, ripped jean jacket. She looked around at the beautiful, shimmering walls crammed with all her favorite books, and she was more bored than when she had had absolutely nothing.

He was giving her all these luxuries, but she didn't care. Because Adam seemed to have decided that, if he couldn't have Callie, Jeanette was just as good.

She hadn't done anything to him. WITH him. She didn't kiss him, she didn't hug him, she didn't touch him. She did her best to stay away from him. She didn't want to be within a five-foot radius.

However, just because she didn't touch him and hug him and go within five feet of him, it didn't mean that he didn't touch her and hug her and go near her.

Maddening. Because she knew exactly what he was doing.

She had overheard him talking the other night. She would have figured out as much, though, even if she hadn't overheard it…

_"Nothing? NOTHING?!"_

_ Jeanette cringed and instinctively shoved herself backward so that she was huddled up in the corner of the cage. She had only been here a few days, but she automatically knew when to back up. Adam flying at her with his fury was a hundred times worse than all of his scientists flying at her with needles…_

_ "Nothing, sir," the strange voice said. Jeanette was still quite unable to figure out who it was. "We've done test after test, and we haven't come up with anything."_

_ "Really?" Adam's voice dripped acid and sarcasm. "You've done every single test, and there isn't ANYTHING."_

_ "Not every test, sir," the voice said somewhat hesitantly, "but any other tests might damage the specimen."_

_ "I've been damaged already," Jeanette muttered under her breath, looking at the tears and rips in her clothing, the bruises, scrapes, and scratches that adorned every inch of her body. "And I am NOT a specimen!"_

_ She made sure to mutter it VERY quietly, though. Sound carried in the caves that they were in. That's why she could hear everything. That's why she could hear them when they had their next conversation—_

_ "I need Callie back!" Adam snarled. "Do you GET THAT? Do whatever you have to do!"_

_ Jeanette felt a chill run down her spine at those words. Shivering, she scooted back even farther into the corner. __**I've got to get out of here before he kills me, or blinds me, or cripples me, or…**_

_ "Sir, a chipmunk is too small for that type of test to be performed on," the voice said regretfully. "If the specimen is damaged beyond repair, you will never get Miss Callie back."_

_ Adam was silent for a while, and he finally began talking in a lower voice._

_ Jeanette regretted it, but she had to uncurl from her ball and crawl closer to the front of her cage. She had to listen and see what he was planning. Her life may depend on it…_

_ "…fine," Adam was murmuring. "I won't, then…but I have to get Callie back. I have to." Then he seemed to think of something. "But I'm going to need to see what Simon put in that needle he injected Callie with."_

_**He put the cure in it, you idiot, **__Jeanette thought. __**That's why I turned back into myself.**_

___"If the scientists can figure that out, they may be able to change Jeanette so that we can get Callie back," Adam was mumbling. "But how do we get to the…"_

_ There was a long silence as Adam thought to himself for a while._

_ Then he brightened. "I've got it," he whispered to himself. "I'll make Jeanette be my girlfriend for a while instead." He grinned to himself._

_ Jeanette recoiled._

_ "Why on earth would you do that?" the accented chipmunk asked, raising his eyebrow. "I thought you were Callie's boyfriend…"_

_ "I am," Adam snapped. "I'm not really going to be Jeanette's boyfriend, idiot. I'm going to pretend that…"_

_ "She'll never go along with it, though," the accented chipmunk interjected. "She's not in love with you; she's in love with Simon. She'll never pretend along with your schemes."_

_ "I'll force her to, then," Adam said with a shrug. "We don't really have to be dating. He just as to think that we are." He laughed. "It will be my revenge on Simon. He'll get a taste of the pain I've been going through…the hardships I've endured…when he thinks that his precious Jeanette hasn't been as loyal to him as he thought If she doesn't love him as much as he thought."_

_ Jeanette's eyes widened. __**No, **__she thought furiously to herself. __**I won't go along with it. I won't!**_

___"And Simon?"_

_ "I won't kill him, of course. I need him. And after he's helped me, then I'll find some way to deal with him."_

_ "Why don't you let the spider bite him again?" the accented chipmunk suggested. "Then Simone will be here, and Simon will be gone forever."_

_ "Brilliant," Adam hissed, grinning._

_ Jeanette shivered in her cage furiously. They didn't know that she had heard every word of their conversation._

_**I won't go along with it, **__she promised herself. __**I won't. No matter what he does, I won't.**_

__And she hadn't. He had threatened her with the worst thing that he could—Simon's life.

_The cage door was yanked open._

_ Jeanette knew it would. She had been waiting for it ever since she had overheard his conversation._

_ A servant chipmunk was standing there, her hands folded. _

_ "You'll have to come with me, Miss Jeanette," the servant said politely._

_ She scooted backwards into the corner, her eyes wide and frightened._

_ "I am not going to hurt you," the servant soothed. "I promise, Miss Jeanette. I won't harm you in the least."_

_ Jeanette managed to find her voice._

_ "You might not," she said in a faint voice. "Adam might be a different story."_

_ "Adam is out today," the servant said, her tone still polite, but a hint of steel entering it. "He won't harm you."_

_ Jeanette was slightly alarmed. The servant referred to everyone else as Sir or Miss, but she just said "Adam" when referring to him. Jeanette got the feeling that the servant didn't like Adam very much._

_ Jeanette didn't move, staying curled in a ball in the corner._

_ "Miss Jeanette," the servant said gently. "I'm not going to hurt you, but if you won't come with me, other guards will come and force you to come with them…in a less pleasant manner for you."_

_ Jeanette stayed where she was for another moment, and then sighed and scooted forward, crawling cautiously out of the cage._

_ "Come with me, then," the servant said, bowing slightly to her and taking off down the hall. _

_ She tried to see where she was, and managed to figure out that she was in a very complicated series of caves. There were so many twists and turns, however, that she was hopelessly lost and didn't know where she was or how to get back._

_ Then they came into a very large, spacious cave. It was dry and warm. The walls were sparkling with gems, and Jeanette couldn't help but let out a gasp. _

_ "Beautiful, isn't it?" the servant asked with a small smile on her face._

_ Jeanette slowly walked farther into the room, twirling around in a circle with her arms outstretched to see everything._

_ "It's gorgeous," she whispered finally._

_ "I know," the servant whispered back._

_ The two chipettes stood there in reverenced silence for a moment._

_ "Let's get you cleaned up," the servant said gently at last._

_ Jeanette frowned and looked at her reflection in a mirror propped against the wall. Her fur was dirty and bedraggled, and her hair was sticking up everywhere. Her clothes were dirty and full of rips and tears._

_ She made a slight face. She looked hideous._

_ There was an underground spring that ran through the other cave, which was to be used as Jeanette's bathroom. Jeanette took a hot bath, feeling fabulous, and washed herself until she was clean. She reached for her old clothes to clean them off, but the servant was already there with a towel. Once Jeanette had dried off, the servant gave her a smooth, silky, strapless purple dress. Jeanette tugged it on, and the servant wove Jeanette's chocolate brown hair into a pretty braid._

_ Jeanette felt much better when they were done—certainly cleaner—but she was curious._

_ "What brought all this on?" she asked quietly as she stepped back into the other room with the servant._

_ "How should I know?" the servant responded quietly. "I am but a lowly servant." Jeanette thought she heard a slight note of bitterness in the servant's voice, but she had seen the shift of sympathy in the servant's eyes and knew that the servant knew the truth._

_ "Ah, you've managed to do something right, for once," a disdainful voice said from behind them. They turned to see Adam sneering at the servant girl._

_ She stood a bit taller, but responded in a calm tone, "Yes, Adam. I have brought Miss Jeanette to her new room."_

_ Jeanette folded her arms and glared at Adam. "Don't talk to her that way," she told him icily._

_ "Why should you care?" Adam shot back. "She's just a servant."_

_ "That may be," Jeanette snapped, "but she's the only one in this joint who's bothered to be nice to me, you included."_

_ Adam seemed to be trying to regain self-control for a moment before he put a smile on his face and stepped forward. "Jeanette, you misunderstand me. I didn't bring you here to be uncomfortable. I want you to be happier."_

_ "Why?" Jeanette was still suspicious._

_ "Because…well, I do rather like you, Jeanette."_

_ Jeanette snorted. "You love Callie. You don't give a crap about me." She felt surprised on the inside. Was this really her saying these words?_

_ "Yes, I do care about you," Adam insisted, but she noted his careful word choice. He cared about her only because his Callie would be lost forever if he destroyed her. "And I want you to care about me, too."_

_ Jeanette was deathly afraid of Adam. She had been since her kidnapping. But at these words, something inside her snapped, and her fear was pushed to the side as her rage was brought to the surface._

_ "YOU DO NOT!" she screamed at him, her paws clenched into fists. "You don't love me! You never have! I can see what you're doing. It's clear! You don't care about me. You care about Callie. You're trying to lead Simon to believe that __**I **__care about __**you. **__Admit it! I can see what you're doing here. No one has to tell me! But I don't care about you. You mean nothing to me! You meant everything to Callie, but YOU MEAN NOTHING TO ME!"_

_ She took a step back, her chest heaving. Adam was speechless, staring at her. It was the most she'd said since she got here._

_ He couldn't speak. He was at a loss for words as he scrambled to regain his bearings._

_ His wordless astonishment just fueled Jeanette's anger. _

_ "And your plan is NOT going to work!" she yelled, taking a step forward until she was right up in his face. "Because I do not care about you, and I refuse to pretend that I do! I love SIMON! Do you get that, Adam? I LOVE HIM!"_

_ She shoved Adam in the chest, hard, and he stumbled back a few steps. _

_ All the anger rushed out of her when she saw that, replaced only by a horrible, aching, crippling sadness. She stumbled backwards and collapsed on the bed. _

_ "I love him," she whispered. "And you took him away from me."_

_ "I can see that you love him," Adam whispered from the doorway, and she looked up to see him positively trembling with rage. "But I don't care about that. Soon he will have no one to love. I will get my Callie back if it's the last thing I do. Simon took HER away from ME. I will get my revenge on him. So you will pretend to care about me. Or I will kill him."_

Jeanette shivered, remembering those words that he had spoken. She had forced herself to remember the earlier conversation that she had heard them having…

_Jeanette almost fell backwards, her head reeling. _

_**NO.**_

_** Not Simon…**_

___Adam could see the horror in her eyes, but she managed to drive it away. __**Think, **__she told herself sternly. __**Remember the conversation that you heard earlier. Adam won't kill Simon. Adam needs Simon. He won't kill him. Think.**_

___And Jeanette did think. It was what she had always been best at._

_ She looked up at Adam, and she began to get angry again. She stood up and stepped toward him, ignoring the warnings that were sparking from his eyes. _

_ "You know what? I think you're bluffing."_

_ He blinked in surprise._

_ "I don't know what," she continued, even though she did know, "but there is something telling me that you won't kill him. I think…I think that you NEED him, Adam."_

_ Adam blinked and swallowed hard. Jeanette could see the nervousness in his eyes, and she had to make sure she played it exactly right. She had to reveal certain parts of what she knew, but she had to make it look like she was figuring it out and she hadn't overheard it._

_ "And listen to me, Adam. Listen up right now."_

_ Adam blinked at her forceful tone. _

_ "You are acting as though this was all his fault. You're acting like a spoiled brat. You're standing there, whining like a two-year-old, 'He started it, he started it!' Well, you know what? YOU started it. You took ME away from HIM. Maybe you didn't, but Zoe did. And when you learned the truth, you didn't care, and you went along with it anyway! There was always a piece of me inside Callie, Adam. There was a piece of me still in there, but I was trapped. I barely existed. Whatever energy was left was spent by me trying to get out, pleading and begging to be freed. And Simon freed me, and it was the most wonderful thing I've ever experienced to be back in control of myself._

_ "And now you want revenge because he took back what was his? Because I am his, Adam. I've always been his. And he's mine. And you took me away from him AGAIN. You've separated us, and it's killing me. I'm sure that it's killing him, too. We can't be apart like this. It hurts so much to be away from him, and YOU are DOING THAT ON PURPOSE!"_

_ She was screaming again._

_ "And I love him! I love him with all my heart, and I will never love you, Adam. I won't pretend that I do. I WON'T!"_

_ Adam stared at her for a long, long time. And he finally left the room._

_ And it was only then that Jeanette's anger dissolved and she allowed the crushing weight of grief to settle over her. Her legs trembled and gave out, and she collapsed on the bed once again. She buried her face in her pillow and sobbed._

Jeanette sighed again and rolled over. She traced lines and patterns in the scores of jewels adorning the cave's ceiling.

Finally, she caved in and went over to pick up a book.

Just then, the door opened, and the timid female servant who had so kindly helped her the day before entered the room.

Jeanette quickly sat back down, pretending like she had been sitting on the bed the entire time.

"Miss Jeanette, you must eat."

Jeanette didn't even look over at the little servant girl. She realized, with a pang, that the girl was just the same age as Eleanor.

_Eleanor…_

Another wave of sadness and loneliness crashed over Jeanette, and she barely had the energy to resurface enough to answer the girl.

"I'm not hungry."

"Please, eat. I know that you must be hungry."

Jeanette still didn't move.

"Come. Please?"

Jeanette barely bothered to shake her head.

"Miss Jeanette, you have to eat. You have to keep yourself in good condition for Mr. Simon."

Jeanette froze. Such talk was absolutely off limits. The servant girl knew this.

She plowed on anyway.

"Miss Jeanette, it's time you stopped being so sad. If everything you've said about Mr. Simon is true, then I'm positive that he must be on his way to rescue you. When he gets here to save you, then you have to be ready for him."

Jeanette frowned slightly. What the girl was saying was actually making sense.

"Do you really think so?" she asked in barely more than a whisper.

"That doesn't matter," the girl told Jeanette gently. "Do _you _really think so?"

Jeanette thought of Simon, and it made her smile.

"Yes," she said, her voice a bit stronger. "I do."

"That should be enough for both of us, then, shouldn't it, Miss Jeanette? If he rescued you from Adam once, I'm certain that he can do it again."

Jeanette pondered this for a moment. She had seen everything that had happened last time through Callie's eyes. She remembered Simon's astonished face as he stared down at Callie on the bed. He remembered how he had faced off against Zoe on the street, actually attacking her to prevent her from taking Callie back again.

She thought about how he had whispered her name, searching inside Callie's eyes for any hint of the chipette that he loved. She remembered how she had saved him, and how he had kissed her when she was back to normal. She remembered how Adam had started to take her, and how Simon had stepped between them, putting himself in front of Jeanette, blocking her from harm's way. How he had leapt at Adam, fighting him off. How they had squared off in the living room. How he had cradled Jeanette close to him so protectively when she was hurt. How he had squared off with Adam in the street. How he hadn't moved from her hospital bed for the entire month she was in the coma. She thought of how he had saved her from the bullies, and how desperate and panicked he had been when Adam took her again. Memory after memory flipped through her brain at lightening speed.

The servant was right, Jeanette realized.

_How will he be able to find you, though? _A small voice was speaking from the back of her brain.

_Well…_

_ No! It's SIMON! Of course he'll find me. He'll fine a way. Actually…you know what? I bet he's coming! I can feel it. I think that he's on his way right now. He is! He's on his way, and he's coming to save me!_

_ And the servant is right—I do have to keep myself safe and healthy. For him._

Jeanette sat up and reached for her breakfast tray. She began to eat.

The servant smiled a wide smile and began to fold some clothes.

"What's your name?" Jeanette asked after chewing and swallowing.

The servant flushed. "I…I don't think that's my place, miss…"

"I don't care," Jeanette said firmly. "Adam might be old-fashioned enough to have slaves, but I'm not. You're not my servant. You're my friend, and you're my helper. That's all. And friends know each other's names. I'm tired of referring to you as 'Adam's servant girl.'"

The servant blushed again. "I'm Monique," she whispered.

"Monique," Jeanette repeated. "That's a beautiful name."

Monique smiled shyly.


	6. Chapter 6

** Hello! Here's chapter six!**

** Thank you all so, so much for reviewing. You are all seriously awesome.**

** Enjoy!**

"Are we there yet?"

"You have been asking the same question for TWO WEEKS, Alvin," Brittany all but snarled. "When we're there, I think Ellie will TELL. YOU. THAT."

She was yelling at the end, flat-out yelling. She was tired and irritable. They all were. They didn't like being cooped up on a ship.

Eleanor came back downstairs after a while and consulted her chart. "All right. I just got a call from the doctor, asking for updates. According to this, Simon and Theodore are allowed to get up now, they've healed, and—,"

Her words were drowned out by a loud cheer from Theodore and Simon.

"Wait a minute!" Brittany snapped. "What about me and Alvin?"

Eleanor winced. "Unfortunately, you and Alvin have to stay in bed for a while longer. You two had the worst injuries, so it's naturally going to take the longest for them to heal."

"Whoa," Theodore murmured. "Alvin and Brittany are trapped down here…together…alone."

"Well, bye," Simon said hastily, scurrying out of the room and on deck.

Eleanor winced and ducked after him.

Theodore was quick to follow.

They had barely reached the stairs before they heard Alvin and Brittany yelling behind them.

Monique looked up, curious, as Adam stormed from Jeanette's room in a terrible rage. Monique shrank back into the shadows and pretended that she wasn't there. That ploy didn't always work, but this time it did, saving her from being the target of Adam's wrath.

She paused for a moment until he was out of sight and then scurried quickly into the room to see what damage had been done this time.

She stifled a shriek, though, when she saw Jeanette sprawled out on the floor, moaning.

"Miss Jeanette!" Monique wailed as she rushed to her new friend. She put one supporting arm under Jeanette and slowly helped her sit up.

Jeanette let out a groan, holding one hand to her face. "He did it again," she whispered.

"Let's get you to the bathroom," Monique whispered, helping Jeanette to the hot pool. She helped Jeanette rinse off and clean up.

Jeanette had to scrub her leg, which seemed hurt, so she had to gingerly take her paw off of her face for the first time.

Monique stifled a gasp when she saw how horrible Jeanette looked underneath. Her face was scraped, mottled, and bruised. Jeanette shivered.

"Does it look horrible?" she whispered, not meeting eyes with Monique.

"It's not…too bad," Monique whispered, but Jeanette knew she was lying.

"I'm trying to keep myself safe…for Simon," Jeanette murmured, "but it's difficult when Adam keeps hurting me like this."

"I'm so sorry, Miss Jeanette," Monique whispered. "I wish I could make it better."

"I appreciate that," Jeanette whispered back. Monique helped her out of the bath and into a smooth purple nightgown. Jeanette stumbled blindly into the next room and felt around on the hard rock floor until she found her glasses, which had been completely knocked off of her. Jeanette picked them up and felt them to make sure they weren't damaged. Miraculously, they weren't. She put them on the small ledge of rock jutting out next to her bed that she used as a table and then got into the bed. She was under the covers and fast asleep before Monique had even come back in from the bathroom.

Monique sighed as she looked at her friend sleeping.

_Good, _Monique thought as she began to straighten up the room. _She's been so exhausted lately…at least she's getting some sleep. She's gone through such an ordeal…every time she refuses to go along with his scheme, he hits her and hurts her. It's horrible…_

_ I worked for Adam and Callie back when they were superstars. I didn't know that Callie was really Miss Jeanette. I'm glad. Callie was pretty nice, but she never noticed me. I like Miss Jeanette much better._

_ Adam was so much nicer back then, though…_

_ He was the sweetest, kindest, gentlest chipmunk that you've ever seen. He must have loved Callie very much, more than we gave him credit for. It's done horrible, dangerous things to him, losing her…poor Miss Jeanette. It's not her fault that Callie has been taken away from him. She was a prisoner inside Callie's brain, and I understand how she doesn't want to go back to that._

_ Adam, though…he doesn't. He's become dangerous. Unstable. I think he might be bordering on insane. This doesn't seem like him at all._

_ Oh, Miss Jeanette. I understand how you're feeling. You love Mr. Simon…you don't want him to get hurt, so you can't pretend to love Adam. But if you don't, then Adam will keep hurting you. What if…what if he goes too far? What if…_

Monique shoved her fist in her mouth to keep from screaming.

_No…no! That can't happen. It won't._

_ Miss Jeanette is sure that Mr. Simon will find her. I'm sure that he will. From what she's told me about him…_

_ I only hope that he gets here soon, or Miss Jeanette may get seriously hurt._

Brittany was stretched out on the bed, sighing to herself. She didn't know what to do. Alvin was in the other cabin, having been allowed to leave the day before. He and Brittany had been only to eager to get away from each other. They had nearly killed one another in the four days they had been trapped together in the same room.

Brittany's cast was still on, and Eleanor had promised to remove it…in three days.

Brittany sighed and closed her eyes.

THWACK!

"Ouch!" Brittany yelled, blinking repeatedly. She sat up, and the thing that had struck her forehead landed in her lap.

She frowned, blinked, and looked at it.

It was a small package wrapped in an old-looking piece of paper. Then she saw the words that were on the piece of paper.. She frowned and pulled the paper off. A sparkly pink gem fell into her lap.

Brittany picked it up and looked deep into it, fascinated. Sparkly patterns were swirling just beneath the surface, and the gem was turning every shade of pink she had ever seen, one after the other, like a strobe light. Dark pink, deep pink, almost red, rose pink, dusty pink, magenta…

She examined the paper critically.

It was in fancy writing…

Brittany,

Do not destroy this gem. Keep it with you at all times. It contains your special power. You will find out what your power is. It is trapped in your gem for now, but it will come out to you only in the most dire circumstance when you need it.

This is why you must keep it with you at all times. Make sure you continue to wear it even when your powers have left it; for what if you should need to encase it in your gem again?

It will be transformed for you into something more easy for you to keep with you all the time as soon as you are finished reading this note.

"I'm sure," Brittany snorted, looking down at the gem.

She gasped in astonishment.

Before her eyes, in a flurry of sparkles, the gem vanished. When the light cleared, there was a beautiful silver ring. The gem was firmly implanted in the center of it.

Brittany cautiously slipped it onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

"Huh," she said aloud, and then snorted. "Ridiculous, of course." She laid down and began to read her book again.

But the ring never left her finger.

Alvin was hunting through his suitcase, trying to find his DS game. His hand hit something smooth and solid.

"Gotcha!" he said aloud, but when he pulled it out, he found that it wasn't his DS.

It was a gem.

A very beautiful gem.

It sparkled in the light as he turned it first one way, then another, trying to get a better look at it. It was a deep red, but then it changed to a reddish orange, and then a neon red, and a lighter red, almost pink. He watched in fascination as it changed again and again, but every time, it was a different shade of red.

He pulled out a note that looked exactly like the one Brittany had received…only it was addressed to him.

He read it quickly and frowned when he got to the part about it transforming when he was done reading. He looked down and cried, "What the—,"

The gem was gone, but his signature red cap was there instead. He frowned and squinted.

There, on each side, was a row of studded red gems. They were all fake except for the one in the middle on the left side. Alvin peered closer. It was slightly larger than all the others, and it was changing colors and patterns.

The gem was now disguised in his hat.

He frowned and put the hat on, tugging it a bit to make sure that it was firmly over his head.

Then he began to hunt for his DS again.

The hat never left his head.

Simon was frowning and squinting out at the sea. He periodically looked down at his phone, which was showing him the coordinates. Then he looked at the sea. Then the ship, and then the masts, and then the sky and the sun.

He was looking up at the masts when something shiny caught his eye.

He frowned and looked harder, but he couldn't make out what it was.

He carefully set the phone down under a bench and began to climb up the rigging, being careful not to slip and fall. He was nervous, but he forced himself to keep going.

He finally got to the top and saw something wedged in a crack in the mast. He tugged it out with some difficulty and examined it critically.

It was a jewel.

A very beautiful jewel. It was swirling and twisting just beneath the surface, as though something was hidden inside it, and it changed from ocean blue to sky blue to metallic blue, switching back and forth in all different shades.

He frowned and peered at it, trying to make sense of it, but nothing was coming to mind. He looked down at the crack again and saw a small piece of paper wedged in it. He tugged it out and read it.

When he got to the end, he looked skeptically down at the gem, and then gasped to see that it had changed. It was now fastened to a skinny black cord, looking as thought it had been made that way the entire time.

Simon frowned suspiciously, staring at it.

He cautiously reached out and touched it. It felt smooth and oddly warm.

He carefully tugged it over his foot and up a bit farther. When he let go, the anklet stayed in place, a perfect fit.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered, climbing carefully back down and shoving the paper into his pocket. He picked up the phone again and began his usual glances at the sky, sea, ship, masts, and phone.

But the anklet never left his ankle.

Theodore was hunting in the ship's kitchen, trying to find something to eat. He hadn't had quite enough at dinner, and—

Ah! Pudding. Perfect. He pulled it out and dug his spoon into it. He pulled the spoon back out and was about to close his mouth around it when he suddenly realized that there was something glinting in his pudding.

He frowned and pulled it out. It was round and smooth, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

He hurried over and rinsed it off in the basin. Then he took a closer look and let out a little gasp.

It was a jewel.

The patterns deep within it were constantly swirling, constantly changing, and it looked as though something alive was in it.

Theodore squinted. It was changing through all the darker shades of green that he knew—dark green, forest green, kelly green.

Then he noticed the note sitting next to the basin as though it had been there the entire time, even though he was quite sure that it hadn't been there just a second ago.

He picked it up and read it. Frowning, he looked back at the gem and gasped.

There, sitting in his palm as though it had originally been that way, was a pin.

He examined it closely. There was a line of small dark green jewels studded on the pin, which was a bright gold. The one in the very middle of the pin, however, was larger than the others. The inside of it seemed to swirl and change, and the colors were switching again and again like a strobe light.

The gem was in a pin now?

Theodore frowned and carefully pinned it onto his sweatshirt. After one last uneasy glance down at it, he pushed the paper into his pocket to examine more closely later and returned to his pudding.

_Weird, _he thought. _I probably shouldn't think anything of it._

But the pin never left his sweatshirt.

Eleanor was bustling down the hall to the first aid closet, trying to find some more bandages. She opened the closet with a sigh and reached for a stack.

But something was on top of it.

Frowning slightly, she pulled it out and examined it.

It was a gem.

There was something inside the gem, though, that looked almost silvery. It twisted and swirled about this way and that, and Eleanor frowned as she looked at its patterns and spirals.

Eleanor lifted it to the light and saw that it was a beautiful pure green. Then it began to change to all sorts of lighter green shades. Ocean green. Spearmint green. Turtle green. Lime green…

Then Eleanor saw the note.

It was addressed to her, and she scanned it quickly. It was just like the ones that the others had received.

She looked at the gem again and gasped.

Now it was a silver charm bracelet. Dangling from the bottom was the gem.

She frowned and slipped it onto her wrist. It fit perfectly.

She stared at it for a while, mesmerized by the patterns and colors. Then she shook her head firmly and pulled herself out of it. She grabbed a stack of bandages and hurried back down the hall the way she had come, forcing herself back into reality.

But the bracelet never left her wrist.

Jeanette was stretched out on the canopy bed, where she spent most of her time. She was staring up at the gems on the ceiling.

Then she frowned and pushed herself into a sitting position. One of them looked almost…protruded. Loose.

Then it fell.

It unstuck from the ceiling and fell, dropping toward Jeanette. It wasn't quite falling, though…more like drifting or floating downwards.

It settled gently in her lap, and she picked it up, frowning.

It was a beautiful deep purple, but then it began to change colors. Violet, indigo, magenta…

Then the note fluttered down to land on the bed next to Jeanette. She scanned it quickly, and then read it more slowly.

Weird…

She peered down at the gem…and then gasped.

It was now hanging from a delicate silver chain as thought it had been there the entire time. She picked it up cautiously and peered into it, tracing the smooth surface, the patterns it was making, watching as it changed shades of purple.

Then she reached up and fastened it around her neck. She pushed the note into one of her books—Jane Eyre, a classic that Adam was sure to never read.

Then she laid back down on the bed to think some more.

But the necklace never left her neck.

"Are you doing all right, Miss Jeanette?" Monique asked politely, stepping forward.

"I'm fine." Jeanette stared down at her necklace, rubbing the jewel and twirling it absentmindedly on the chain.

"What's that?" Monique asked, curious.

"Just one of the necklaces I found in the drawer," Jeanette said, covering her yawn with one hand and pointing with the other.

"Oh," Monique said, disinterested now. She continued to fold laundry.

Jeanette was relieved. She trusted Monique, but she couldn't trust Adam. She couldn't tell anyone about the necklace. Not even her best friend.


	7. Chapter 7

Brittany sighed with relief as the cast popped off her arm and clattered on the ground. "Thanks," she told Eleanor, relieved.

"You can get up and move around now—you just have to be careful," Eleanor warned her. "Don't exert yourself too much."

"Okay," Brittany agreed, clambering down out of bed. She scampered up on deck.

She twirled the ring around her finger absentmindedly as she walked up to the rail and looked down into the frothing waves below. She shivered involuntarily—Brittany didn't know how to swim—but she couldn't help but feel like the waves were beautiful in a way.

"You're finally allowed out of bed, huh?" Simon called.

Brittany turned to face him and grinned at him. "Yeah," she called back. "Eleanor took my cast off just now."

Simon nodded once and continued to stare down at his phone.

Brittany noticed something. "Nice anklet," she told him.

He looked up, alarm and panic in his eyes. "What? Huh? Oh—uh—thanks. Yeah. Um…thanks."

Flustered, he looked back down at his phone again.

Brittany frowned. _Odd, _she thought.

She turned back to face the rail again.

"Careful, Britt. It's kind of slippery up here," Alvin called.

"Thanks," Brittany called back. "I'm fine."

Alvin stumbled over to where she was and looked over the rail with her. "Weird, huh?" he asked.

She nodded, staring down at the waves as if mesmerized. She didn't know what, but something inside of her seemed to be trying to tug her down toward the water. The water seemed to be pulling at her, trying to get her to come closer. She leaned a bit farther over the rail.

"Careful," Alvin warned again.

"I'm fine," Brittany repeated absentmindedly, still trying to get closer into the waves.

"Britt!"

She leaned too far over.

She fell.

"BRITTANY!" Alvin yelled.

Screaming, Brittany plummeted all the way down and was lost in the waves.

"Stop the ship!" Alvin bellowed. "Stop! Brittany fell! CHIPMUNK OVERBOARD!"

"Quick, help me lower the anchor!" Simon yelled to the others, dropping his phone with a clatter. All four of them pushed hard and managed to lower the anchor and stop the ship.

Alvin ran to the back of the ship and peered into the water behind it. "BRITTANY!" he screamed. "BRITTANY! WHERE ARE YOU?"

Brittany was shrieking as she fell, hurtling and plummeting toward the ocean. The sky spun sickeningly above her, and she could just barely make out Alvin's face, twisted in horror, one hand outstretched toward her. He was yelling something, but she couldn't make out what it was.

Then she hit the waves.

A part of her was still screaming and shrieking as she was tossed about by the current. She couldn't surface, no matter how hard she fought. She didn't know how to swim. But for some reason, a part of her, the part that had been tugging her toward the waves, was rejoicing. In the midst of all this chaos, she felt…somehow…at home.

Then, to her horror, she felt the current dragging her down even farther, deeper…

_This is it, _she thought to herself. _This is the end._

_ I'm so sorry, Jeanette…_

For some reason, she opened her eyes and lifted her hand in front of her face. Her last sight would be the ring, still beautiful.

Then she saw that it was shimmering.

Lights were beginning to swirl and twist around it. She stared at it in astonishment, even as her lungs ached for air.

Just then, there was a brilliant explosion of light, so bright that Brittany had to shield her eyes. All the air left her in a flurry of bubbles, and then she was choking.

But she forced herself to look at the ring again.

Then she saw that the swirling, twirling patterns inside it seemed to be coming out.

Spirals and twists of silvery light flew from the gem until they were floating in the water beside Brittany, just floating there next to her. They looked remarkably like the patterns that used to swirl in the ring.

Then they began to surround her, coming in closer, weaving into one another in an intricate pattern. They formed a brilliant silvery cocoon of light around her, and it was so, so bright.

Brittany remembered the note. _The magic is trapped in the gem, but it will come out to you only in the most dire circumstance when you need it._

_ This is a dire circumstance if I've ever seen one, _she thought.

There was another burst of light, and the silvery lights seemed to be touching her, caressing her. And then…they began to flow _into _her.

It was a wonderful sensation, like being slowly filled up with the air that she had been craving so much. Then she realized that her lungs weren't bursting anymore. She smiled to herself, feeling warm and at peace.

Then the lights vanished, leaving Brittany with a slight tingling sensation and the realization that she was somehow still alive.

She let out a little sigh.

Then she blinked.

_I can't sigh underwater. _

Frowning, she experimented and sucked in.

She could breathe.

Underwater.

Trembling, she lifted the ring to her face again and peered into it. The silvery, twisting lights were gone. The ring was just one solid shade of light pink now, not changing shades. It looked just like an ordinary ring.

Then she looked down and let out another gasp. She had…changed.

But it felt so, so good. So _right. _

She smiled and twirled around in the water, letting out a little giggle.

Then she remembered.

_Alvin! The others! The ship!_

She instantly whipped around and tried to find it. She saw it in the distance and instantly began to head toward it.

"BRITTANY!" Alvin was near tears.

Then he saw what looked like a bright light far off in the water. He frowned and squinted hard at it, but then it faded away.

"What was THAT?" Simon asked with a frown, joining Alvin at the rail.

"I…I don't know," Alvin said, reaching up subconsciously and touching his gem.

"Ouch!" He yanked his hand away from it. It was burning hot.

Then Simon let out a yelp and shook his ankle. Theodore stifled a hiss and pulled his sweatshirt away from his skin where the pin was. Eleanor let out a little cry and shook her wrist.

Jeanette, far away in the cave, let out a little gasp and grabbed her necklace away from the skin. She looked at it in fascination.

All five of their gems were glowing very bright, and burning hot.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, it faded. The gems were smooth and cool once again.

Then Alvin turned back to the waves and let out a cry of delight, pointing down into the water.

Poking her head out of the water and grinning and waving at them all was Brittany.

She had changed, though. Her hair was out of its ponytail and swinging down to her waist. It had grown significantly. Also, her normal clothes were gone. Only her upper body was out of the waves, so they could see that her shirt and jacket had been replaced with a light, fluttery, pastel-pink shirt that was soft as sea foam and clung gently to her.

"Hi, guys!" she called, twirling around in the water.

"Brittany, come up here!" Alvin called.

"I don't think I can!" she called back, giggling once more.

"What? Why not?" Alvin was confused.

Brittany bit her lip, bobbing up and down in the waves. "I'll show you," she called at last.

She leaned backward and then threw herself forward, diving down so vigorously that her legs went straight up in the air before slipping under the waves.

Only…her legs didn't come up.

What did come up was…a _tail._

It was bright and pink, and the scales glittered and gleamed in the sunlight as Brittany moved it and twisted it from underwater, showing it off. Then the tail vanished under the waves, and Brittany's torso popped up again.

She grinned at their flabbergasted expressions.

"Brittany's…a _mermunk!" _Alvin cried in astonishment.

"Do you really think this will work?" Brittany called up to them, nervous.

"It should," Eleanor said firmly. "In all the books I've read, if a person is half-mermaid and half-human, all they have to do is get out of the water for a while and their legs will come back."

"Do you think my tail will ever come back again, too?" Brittany asked them, looking sadly down at her tail. "I mean…there's really no way to describe this. It's just so, so cool."

"I think that it will happen whenever you're in the water," Eleanor told her.

She tossed the thick rope down to Brittany, and Brittany tied it around her waist. Then she and Theodore pulled Brittany out of the water and up onto the deck.

Brittany stretched out, her tail flopping limply.

"I feel…really…dried…out," she panted.

"Just give it a minute longer, Britt," Eleanor whispered.

"Put…me…back…in…the…water," Brittany huffed dizzily. "This…isn't…working." She was gasping for air now.

"Brittany, rub your ring," Alvin spoke up suddenly.

Brittany frowned at him. "What?" she asked.

"Rub your ring and focus really hard on what you were like before," he told her. "Then try to move yourself from your mermaid body and into your chipmunk one."

Brittany looked skeptical, but she rubbed the gem on her ring and closed her eyes. Her expression changed from annoyance to a deep concentration.

Then there was a brilliant flash of light, and when it faded, Brittany was lying on the deck. Her tail was gone, and her normal clothes and legs were back.

"It worked!" Brittany cried.

"See, now when you want to be a mermunk, you can do that in the water, too," Alvin told her, satisfied.

"That was the coolest thing ever," Brittany gushed, grabbing Eleanor's hands and squeezing them. "It was just SO AWESOME!" Then she caught sight of Eleanor's bracelet.

"Wow, that's pretty, Ellie. Where did you get it?" Brittany asked, and then she noticed the green gem hanging from it.

She gasped and released it. Eleanor rubbed it nervously and backed away.

"You…it's…"

"I know it's weird, but just let me explain!" Eleanor began, but Brittany shook her head.

"My ring," she whispered, "was exactly like that…only pink…before I turned into a mermaid."

"Wait a minute. What are you guys talking about?" Simon ran over.

"Look," Brittany whispered, holding out Eleanor's bracelet.

Simon gawked at it for a long, long moment before lifting his ankle and pointing.

"Hey! You have one, too!" Brittany cried, staring in astonishment at the swirling blue gem that was dangling from it.

"Is this sort of thing what you're all gawking about?" Alvin griped, pulling off his hat and displaying the gemstones on the side. He pointed to the real gem, swirling and red.

They all gaped in astonishment.

"Um…my pin looks kinda like that," Theodore said in a quiet voice.

They all whirled to look at him and he shyly pointed to the green swirling gem on his pin.

They all stared at one another in silence.

"And did you all get this note with it?" Alvin asked quietly at last, pulling the paper out of his pocket.

After reading it, they all nodded silently.

"So…we have, like, powers?" Eleanor asked, staring suspiciously at her green gem. "And they're locked in these gems. But they'll only come out when we need them."

"That's what happened to me!" Brittany cried. "I was drowning." She ignored Alvin's flinch. "But then the powers came out of the ring and they went…they went into me. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true, that was the bright light that you saw! I would have died, but instead, I have the powers of…water?"

"Well, not necessarily," Simon shrugged. "You may just have the power to be part 'mermunk,' as Alvin calls it."

Brittany looked down with wide eyes. "Then how do you explain this?" she asked after a long pause, holding up her hands.

They all stared in astonishment.

Streams of water were trickling from her fingertips.

"No way," Simon said in a hushed voice.

"And look," Brittany cried. She dove over into the water, and everyone let out a cry, but seconds later there was a bright flash underneath the water and she surfaced as a mermaid. She scooped up some water and held it there, a perfect round water ball, in her hands.

"Whoa," they all chorused.

She climbed back up the ship one-handed, holding the water ball in her other hand, and turned back into a chipmunk. Then she stood on the deck and displayed the ball of water to the others. They all stared in astonishment. Eleanor reached out and poked it, but it dissolved and ran through her fingers.

Brittany leaned down on the deck and scooped up the puddle, not leaving behind a drop and forming another water ball with it.

She bounced it up and down in her hand, grinning ear to ear as everyone gaped in astonishment.

"Awesome, huh?" she beamed.


	8. Chapter 8

"So Brittany has water powers."

"Yes."

"You've been suspecting something like this for a long time, haven't you, Eleanor?"

Eleanor turned to face her counterpart with an astonished look.

"You can't hide anything from me, Ellie," Theodore told her earnestly. "You and me, we're a team. We're in this thing together."

Eleanor looked at him for a while. Then she sighed slightly and turned back to face the ocean. "Yes, I've been waiting for this to happen."

"Why?" It was Theodore's only question.

Eleanor took a deep breath. "Ever since I saw the gems," she admitted. "I knew something was special about them. One day, I—,"

"LOOK OUT!"

The shriek came from Alvin, who was perched in the masts and pointing ahead with a frantic look in his eye.

Brittany, who was swimming in the water alongside the ship, looked up and pointed, too.

"OH, NO!" Simon screamed when he saw the enormous rock. "No, no, no! TURN! TURN THE SHIP!"

"There's a rock!" Theodore cried in desperation. "We're not gonna make it!"

Brittany screamed and dove underwater, trying to find some way to stop the ship.

Eleanor let out a shriek as the ship headed closer to the rock…closer…closer…

It was going to hit her!

Suddenly, she looked down at her bracelet, and when she did, there was an explosion of light.

Everyone toppled over, trying to shield their eyes, except for Eleanor, who stood firmly on deck, the wind whipping all around her. The silvery patterns of her gem were swirling out of it, surrounding her, enveloping her in light and sound. Then she felt them sliding…_into _her.

It was a fabulous feeling—like she was being filled with something sweet and syrupy, like honey. She almost felt like she could just float away.

Then, without knowing what she was doing, she thrust her hands out in front of her.

With a creaking, groaning sound, the rock _split in half._

The ship sailed calmly through the two halves of rock, and the light faded from Eleanor. She frowned and looked down at her bracelet. The gem dangling from it was a solid pastel green, not switching to any different shades. The patterns and swirls were gone. It was just an ordinary jewel once more.

Gasping, she turned to face the others, who were all staring at her like she was nuts.

Brittany clambered back onto the deck and changed into a chipmunk again, joining the other three in staring at her younger sister.

"Er…I think I just got my powers," Eleanor said nervously.

"Ellie!" Theodore gasped. "I bet you have ROCK POWERS!"

"Um, Theodore? I think she has _earth _powers," Brittany giggled.

"What makes you say that?" Theodore was confused.

Brittany pointed.

Vines were growing up from the deck and circling around Eleanor's ankles.

"They're trapping you!" Theodore cried.

"I think that they're hugging her," Simon corrected.

Eleanor giggled slightly, rubbed her bracelet, and closed her eyes. The vines receded and vanished.

"Wow." Alvin whistled. "You just saved our lives, Eleanor."

"But think about it," Brittany insisted. "If she hadn't split the rock, then she would have died. I guess that was a dire circumstance."

"I doubt I would have DIED," Eleanor said with a grin. "I doubt any of us would have really died, because we have a sister who is part fish and who could get us out of the water."

Brittany rolled her eyes and grinned ever so slightly. She threw herself off the deck of the ship, spiraling and twisting down until she landed in the water and brought her tail back.

"We should almost be there, guys," she called, pointing. "There are a ton of rocks ahead."

After several minutes of sailing, there were too many rocks to continue. They lowered the anchor.

"There's the island," Simon called, pointing.

They all looked up at the enormous rock in the distance. It was probably the size of half the island they had been on when they were shipwrecked.

"There are tunnels and caves in there," Simon explained, "where he's keeping Jeanette."

"But how are we going to get there?" Theodore asked, frustrated.

Eleanor giggled, bit her lip, and giggled again. "Is it immature to want to use my powers?" she asked.

"No," Brittany called from below, flicking her tail and swimming in circles as she grinned. "At least, I hope not."

Eleanor focused hard. Seconds later, a vine twisted down out of nowhere.

The boys doubled over in astonishment. Theodore peered into the air, but the vine didn't seem to be attached to anything.

The bottom of it looped down and under so that it formed a large hook at the bottom, which provided a very nice seat for Eleanor. Eleanor settled down into it, and the vine set off, drifting off the ship and over the waves.

"Be careful, Eleanor!" Theodore called nervously.

Brittany swam under her sister the entire way in case she fell, which she didn't. The vine delivered her safely onto the large rock, and then it curled back upward and vanished.

"Can you two help us out?" Alvin called, crossing his arms. Simon and Theodore nodded in agreement.

"All right," Brittany called. "Alvin, Simon, I can swim you two over."

Alvin hurried forward.

"I don't really like water," Simon said nervously. "Can you help me out, Ellie?"

Eleanor focused, and two more vines dropped down. Theodore and Simon carefully clambered onto them.

"Hold on tight," Eleanor called, focusing her powers. The vines began to drift toward her.

Alvin jumped overboard into the waves, and Brittany grabbed his sweatshirt and hauled him to the surface before he could sink.

"Get on my back," she told him.

He stared at her.

"Don't be a baby," she snapped, exasperated. "It would be just like riding a fish."

"A very hot female fish," Alvin muttered under his breath. Brittany's cheeks turned red, but she pretended he hadn't spoken.

"If you'd rather I carry you bridal style…"

Alvin hastily climbed onto her back before she could finish.

"Just like riding a dolphin," she told him, careful to keep his upper body out of the waves. She flicked her tail and zoomed off, veering around rocks and obstacles until she was at the rock. Alvin clambered off just as Simon and Theodore got there on their vines.

Everyone climbed onto the rock, and the vines vanished. Brittany climbed out of the water, and with a quick flash of light, she was a chipmunk again.

"I'm getting good at this whole transition thing," she said with a grin.

"I wonder if Jeanette got a gem, too," Simon mused.

"And I wonder what her power is. Do you think she's got it already?" Alvin asked.

"I really hope not," Simon said grimly. "I don't like to imagine her in such a dire situation that she needs it."

"I wonder what OUR powers will be," Alvin mused.

"Let's just go," Simon snapped.

They all saw the entrance to the caves.

"I've got my phone, and I'm tracking Jeanette," Simon told them, displaying the GPS screen on his phone.

"Let's go, then," Brittany whispered uncertainly.

"What's the matter?"

"There isn't any water in there," she said nervously. "My powers aren't going to be much help."

"Maybe they will be. We'll see," Alvin assured her.

They all set off.


	9. Chapter 9

***trumpet fanfare* Chapter nine! Hope you enjoy.**

"It's pitch black in here," Eleanor grumbled.

"Yeah," Theodore agreed. "I wish we could see just a little."

"I wonder what's happening," Brittany whispered.

"Take another left," Simon called, peering down at his phone. It wasn't enough to light the gloom, though.

Just then, Theodore felt the gem on his pin growing warmer and warmer. He looked down to see it glowing.

"Um…guys?" he squeaked, and everyone instantly came to a halt.

"What's the matter?" Eleanor cried, frightened.

Then there was another enormous flash of light, and all the silvery shapes came out of Theodore's gem. They surrounded him and cocooned him, and he felt like he was being warmed in front of a fire, inside and out. He wiggled his nose with happiness.

Then the shapes flowed inside him, increasing the comfortable feeling of warmth. Just like that, all the light was gone, and it was pitch black again.

"Nobody move," Simon said quietly.

"Why?" Alvin asked, impatient.

"Theodore just got his powers," Simon whispered, "which means that he is in a very grave situation right now."

They all got pale.

"I forgot about that part," Theodore whispered. "But what are my powers?"

"Maybe you could try giving us some LIGHT," Brittany grumbled. "THAT would be helpful right now. I wish…"

She sighed.

Theodore rubbed his gem and focused.

WHOOOOSH!

All at once, a brilliant light appeared in the corridor.

"Whoa!" Eleanor gasped, pointing.

Everyone stared at Theodore in astonishment.

He was holding a ball of light. In his hand.

"I have light powers!" he cried.

Then the light vanished.

He gasped. "And darkness! I wished for it to be dark, and it was! But…hey. I can still see!"

"You can see in the dark?" Alvin cried. "Aww, man, no fair."

Theodore gasped.

"Nobody move," he squeaked.

"Simon already told us that," Alvin snapped. "Why not, Mr. Night Vision?"

"Because there is a humongous chasm right in front of us, and I can't see the bottom of it," Theodore replied in a quaking voice. Then he gasped. "Eleanor. Back. Up. Now."

Eleanor gave him a quizzical look.

"You take another half step and you'll probably die," Theodore whispered. "Your foot is right next to it."

Eleanor cautiously lifted up her foot and waved it around in the space in front of her. She felt nothing but empty, cold air.

Shivering, she quickly backed up.

"Hey, Theo, could you give us some light, please? We don't all have night vision," Simon said, irritation thick in his voice.

"Oops." Theodore's voice was sheepish as he focused hard and lifted his hand. Another ball of light appeared, and he shone it around.

"Look," Eleanor whispered, pointing. "The other side is too far away for us to jump."

"We are absolutely NOT going to jump!" Simon snapped. "We're going to find another way around."

"There isn't any other way around," Theodore repeated, squinting into the darkness ahead of them that the others couldn't see.

They were all silent for a while.

"Maybe one of you three can use your powers to get us out of this mess," Alvin suggested after a moment.

"I don't see how making it lighter or darker is going to help this," Theodore said after a thoughtful pause.

"Unless there's water at the bottom of that chasm, I'm not going to be able to help us any," Brittany shrugged.

"Eleanor! Can you do that vine thingy again to get us across?" Simon asked.

She bit her lip. "Sorry, Si. That only works when I'm outside. We're underground right now, with a rock ceiling and all, so it won't work."

Theodore looked around. "There are some plants growing on that wall," he pointed. "Will those help?"

Eleanor looked at them, but she couldn't see.

"I can't see past the light," she frowned.

Theodore thought for a moment. Then he twisted his hand and rubbed his gem simultaneously, and the light sphere vanished.

"Sure, THAT made it a lot better." Eleanor's sarcastic voice came out of the darkness.

"Just wait," Theodore said. He took a deep breath and then rubbed his gem again, concentrating.

Then, the passage was lit up again.

"Whoa!" Simon gasped, pointing.

Light was streaming from each of Theodore's fingertips, creating five flashlight-like beams. He shone them in the corner, where the plants were.

"Well, they're not much, but I think I may be able to do something with them," Eleanor frowned. "Hang on." She closed her eyes and rubbed the jewel on her bracelet, concentrating hard.

Then the plants began to grow.

They stretched out from the wall, turning into thicker, sturdier vines as they got bigger. They stretched farther and farther. The ones on the other wall of the chasm were doing the same thing. The two lines of plants began to stretch towards one another, growing quickly.

They met in the middle several seconds later. Eleanor focused, and they began to twine themselves around one another, twisting and tying and curling.

"There," Eleanor said, pleased, opening her eyes. Now there was a checkerboard-style net of vines stretching from one end of the chasm to the other.

"Are these strong enough to hold us?" Theodore asked nervously.

Eleanor focused. "They should be if we go one at a time," she said at last. "Theodore, you have the light, so you first."

Theodore crawled carefully across the net, being sure to avoid the gaps. His flashlight-fingers were constantly moving, and they were trembling with fear, which made the beams of light swing crazily all over the chasm.

"Sorry," he called sheepishly as he got to the other side. He stood up and dusted himself off. "It seems sturdy—just be really careful, guys." He held his fingers steady, shining them on the net so that everyone to cross could see where they were going.

Simon was next, carefully crawling across and trying not to slip. He got there faster than Theodore did, standing up.

"Britt, you go next," Alvin said softly. She nodded somewhat nervously and began to crawl. She was thinner than the other two, and her hand slipped through one of the gaps about halfway across, drawing a small shriek from her. But she managed to draw her hand back out and keep going.

Alvin went next, hurrying as fast as he could but trying not to slip at the same time.

"All right, we all made it," Alvin called.

"Good," Eleanor called back. "Here goes nothing." She took a step onto the vines and focused hard. The ones on her side instantly curled tightly around her legs, ankles, and torso, making a safe harness. Then they began to retract back toward the other wall, shrinking as fast as they had grown and moving Eleanor steadily through the air across the chasm. It was like the growing process in reverse. By the time they got to the other wall and uncurled themselves from the little chipmunk, they were just the small, springy plants growing on the sides of the chasm again.

Eleanor stepped smartly up onto the rock where the others were, ignoring their gaping astonishment.

"Shall we continue?" she asked wryly, ignoring their gawking and continuing on down the passageway.

"Wait," Simon whispered, and they all stopped. "We can't just run in here, or Adam will find us. We need a plan."

Brittany thought for a while, and then snapped her fingers. "I've got it!" she whispered. "Here's my idea…"

Jeanette stared at the wall, seeing nothing.

"It'll be all right, Miss Jeanette," Monique had whispered just before Jeanette had been pushed into the room. With Adam.

This happened every day, as he coaxed, pleaded, and threatened her to go along with his scheme. Every time, she refused, and every time, he hurt her. She was holding up, but not for long. She felt like a rock, a strong rock, but one that was being beaten and weathered by the elements. She wondered privately how long it would be before she crumbled.

_Never, _she told herself firmly. _Don't ever give in to him. Don't give him what he wants!_

But secretly, she knew that she couldn't hold out forever.

Simon, Brittany, and Eleanor crept quietly down the hallway, trying not to be noticed.

Just then, a guard rounded the corner.

"Hey!" he yelled. "You two! Stop right there!"

The three froze in confusion.

_You…two?_

"You two girls!" he repeated. "Don't move!" He was aiming a gun right at them.

_What about Simon? _Brittany wondered. They both looked over, and then did a double take.

Simon wasn't there.

Simon stood there, wondering why they weren't noticing him. Then he got a pleasantly cool, tingling feeling all over him. He looked down to see the last of the silvery stuff in his anklet slip into his body. How had he not noticed it?

The jewel on his anklet wasn't changing color—not anymore, at least.

And then he calmly realized that he couldn't see himself.

_Whoa, _he thought. _My power is…invisibility?_

Just then, he hit a stone by mistake. It skittered across the rock floor.

The guard jumped and fired without thinking.

Simon felt everything happening in slow motion. He heard the gun go off, saw the bullet hurtling through the air toward Brittany and Eleanor. And he felt himself thrust his hands out.

A shimmery blue substance flew out from his hands and formed a dome around the three. The bullet hit the dome…and bounced off.

The guard stared in astonishment. "What the…" he cried.

Eleanor focused on the plants in the corner, and vines curled around the gun and yanked it away from him.

"You know what to do," Simon whispered almost inaudibly to the girls.

"But you have your powers now," Brittany whispered back. "You have invisibility! And force fields!"

"Those will undoubtedly come in handy," he breathed. "Now stick to the plan."

Eleanor jerked her hand, and the vine threw the gun into the chasm just behind them. It clattered out of sight. Then a vine coiled around the guard's ankle and yanked on it, hard. The guard toppled to the ground.

Simon dropped his hands and the force field vanished. "Run!" he yelled to the other two, and they sprang over the guard and dashed deeper into the fortress.

"Those vines will keep him busy for a while," Eleanor murmured in satisfaction.

"Jeanette, I grow tired of asking."

"Then I suggest you STOP asking," she snapped back, refusing to face Adam.

She could almost feel the rage rolling off of him. "All right, then. This will be the last time." Menace curled in his tone, and Jeanette planted her feet a bit more firmly, bracing herself.

Just then, a guard ran into the room, remnants of vines dangling from his ankles.

"Sir!" he gasped. "Sir, we have—,"

"Spit it out!" Adam snarled.

"Sir, Simon Seville has infiltrated the fortress."

Everything was silent for a moment. To Jeanette, it felt like fireworks were exploding inside her. First she was astonished, and then she was extremely joyful. She wanted to let out a shriek and start celebrating right then and there.

_Simon! Oh, Simon! He's here! He's come to rescue me!_

"Impossible," Adam snarled under his breath.

"He had two females with him, sir."

_My sisters! They're here, too! I'm saved! I'm going to get out of here!_

Adam was frozen for a minute. Then he smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.

"You and you," he said, motioning to two guards against the wall. Jeanette had long since given up on trying to talk to any of the guards—even if they wanted to talk, it was difficult to hear anything through the heavy helmets and blaster shields that were over their heads and faces. That wasn't a problem, fortunately, because Adam was usually yelling.

"Code 879," he told them. "Simon Seville undoubtedly does not know all the traps that we have in the fortress. He will soon be heading for trap number sixty-seven, which will be less than pleasant for him." Adam grinned evilly. "Once he has been apprehended, you will take him to me."

"Yes, sir," one guard squeaked, and they both trotted off.

Jeanette was horrified. Her delight instantly turned into panic.

_No!_

Adam laughed quietly. "You thought your Simon was coming to save you…how touching. But he should be more worried about saving himself at this point."

"No!" Jeanette ran for the exit of the room, which was something she hadn't tried in a while. Of course, Adam got there first, grabbing her arm and yanking her back.

"Nice try," he whispered, throwing her against the wall. She hit it hard and crumpled to the ground. The remaining guards in the room instantly regrouped around the door.

"Deal with her," Adam snapped at another. "Make sure she doesn't get away. I'll be back soon."

One quite small guard hurried forward and pulled Jeanette to her feet. The guard's touch was unusually gentle, even as he chained her wrists together and then chained her to the wall.

"Are you all right?" The gruff question came from underneath the blaster helmet.

Jeanette frowned. "Why do you care?" she said bitterly.

The guard instantly backed off. Jeanette felt bad. He was one of the only two who had shown her any kindness whatsoever.

"I'm fine," she whispered after a long moment, staring at the ground.

She tugged helplessly at the chain, already knowing it was no use.

_Oh, Simon…get out of here, quick, while you still can, _she thought desperately.


	10. Chapter 10

**Okay, I know I just updated, but I just had to put the next chapter up! I couldn't just leave it at that. This is probably one of my favorite chapters. I love this one.**

** Enjoy!**

Adam was leaning against the wall, a triumphant smirk on his face, when the two guards dragged Simon in. Simon knew that it was too late. He had known that since the guards had caught him.

He looked around, curious. There were guards on both sides. Lounging on the wall across from them was Adam. And a few feet away from Adam, chained to the wall, was—

"Jeanette!" Simon cried.

"Simon," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. "I'm so sorry, Simon, I—,"

"Shut up," Adam snarled at her, and she shot a hate-filled glare at him.

"Leave her alone!" Simon growled at him, and he laughed.

"Aww, isn't this touching," he sneered. "You, over there, acting as if you have a CHOICE in the matter."

"Adam, he's not who you want," Jeanette said in a low voice. "You don't have anything to do with him. It's me you want. Just leave him alone."

"Afraid I can't, dear Jeanette," Adam said lazily, leaning his head back. "I do need him, actually. As for the leaving alone part—," He smirked. "After I'm done with him, we'll see how many different ways 'left alone' can be interpreted."

"Don't touch him," she growled.

"Honestly, what do you see in him?" Adam said, ignoring her remark and sauntering over to her. "Don't you think you'd do so much better with someone else…me, maybe?"

He took her in his arms, but she struggled to get out of them.

"Don't TOUCH HER!" Simon snarled, fighting against the guards as hard as he could.

"Why not?" Adam shot at him, grinning. "She likes it when I touch her, don't you, Jeanette?"

"No!" she yelled, fighting him. "I do NOT. If you need that message CLEARER than how I've been giving it to you, I might have to get you a BULLHORN!"

"She's lying," Adam said, rolling his eyes but letting to of her. She fell against the wall. "She loves it when I hug her…"

Simon felt like he had just been punched in the gut.

"Don't listen to him, Simon," Jeanette told him, her voice soft. He locked eyes with her. "You know that I don't love him."

Truth was brimming in her eyes, and he instantly knew that she was telling the truth.

"You're still lying," Adam taunted, but Simon knew who the real liar was.

"I am not," Jeanette snarled. "I hate it when you touch me. I hate it when you come anywhere NEAR ME. I can't stand you!"

"Aw, c'mon," Adam grinned. "I'm not that bad. I can be gentle when I want to be…"

"You certainly weren't being gentle when you touched me a second ago to THROW ME INTO THE WALL!" she yelled at him. "Or yesterday, when you were trying to…"

The rest of what she was saying faded out of Simon's hearing as he looked at Jeanette more closely. His eyes widened. She was covered in scrapes, scars, and bruises. She looked horrible.

_He hurt her, _he realized, and his eyes narrowed as bloodlust filled him. _He HURT HER!  
_Rationality left him in a rush as he forgot the plan, forgot everything. He fought against the guards holding him as hard as he could, not even able to form comprehensible words.

Jeanette glowered at Adam as the guards hauled Simon back. One particularly hard lunge brought the shorter guard close to Simon's ear, and Jeanette frowned. She could've sworn she'd heard the smaller guard whisper, _"Not yet."_

Simon straightened up, glaring ferociously at Adam.

"I cannot believe you, you sick lowlife," he hissed.

The smaller guard was tense and ready, as if he were about to do something.

Two of the shorter guards on the wall, including the small one who had asked if Jeanette was all right earlier, were tensing up as well.

"Where are the others?" Adam asked the guard that had brought Simon into the room, completely ignoring Simon's comment. Jeanette fought against the chains that were holding her.

"No others were found, sir. Just this one," the guard answered in a gruff voice from under the helmet and blaster shield.

"No girls? None of the other chipmunks?" Adam was astonished.

"No, sir."

"Where on earth are _they, _then?"

"WE'RE RIGHT HERE!"

That was all the warning that Adam had before he was kicked—hard—in the back.

The shorter guard who had been kind to Jeanette earlier was standing there. The guard reached off and pulled off his helmet. Jeanette's mouth dropped open in astonishment.

It wasn't _his _helmet at all.

"Ellie!" Jeanette cried.

"No one hurts my sister, you jerk!" Eleanor yelled down at Adam.

The two guards holding Simon let go and pulled off their helmets and shields.

"Alvin! Theo!" Jeanette cried happily. The other guard who had been next to Eleanor pulled off her disguise.

"Britt!" Jeanette grinned.

"Guards, get them!" Adam rasped from the floor.

Instantly, Simon sprang to Jeanette, pulling a huge sword out. "Back up," he yelled to her, and she instantly did, stretching the chain taut. He slashed right through it, and Jeanette was free. She yanked the remnants of the chain off of her wrists and Simon dropped the sword. Instantly, she ran to him, and he caught her in a tight hug.

"I missed you so much," she whispered. "But I knew that you'd come back for me."

"I'll always come back for you," Simon whispered back.

"DON'T MOVE!" she heard from behind them. Instantly, they both whirled around to see Adam pointing the gun straight at them. Simon stepped in front of Jeanette instantly, shielding her from Adam.

"Go ahead," Simon sneered. "Shoot me."

"What are you doing?" Jeanette hissed frantically.

"I don't think he will shoot me," Simon snorted. "I think that he's too chicken."

Adam scowled. "I am not," he said through clenched teeth.

"Killing isn't as easy as the innocent believe it is," Simon told Adam, quoting Harry Potter, one of his favorite books.

Adam glared. "Ever since you got off that island, all you've been is a nuisance," he hissed. "And I'm going to finish that right now."

He squeezed the trigger at the same time Simon flung out his hands. Instantly, the same force field rushed out and surrounded him and Jeanette, and the bullet bounced harmlessly off.

"No way!" Alvin gasped from where he was battling two guards at once on the other side of the room. "Dude! You got your powers, bro!"

"That's impossible," Adam hissed.

"Nothing's impossible," Simon replied smugly. "And news flash—as long as I've got this up, you can't touch us." He smirked at Adam.

Adam clenched his fists. Jeanette leaned around Simon to smirk at him as well.

"Jeanette was never yours," Simon told Adam, fury sparking from his eyes. "She's mine. She's always been mine. And I will never let you have her again."

The other four chipmunks grouped around Simon and Jeanette, and Simon extended the force field to include all of them.

Adam grinned suddenly.

Simon stared at him.

"I admit, you're good, Simon. That force field is…the bomb."

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

An enormous explosion rocked the cave, and everyone fell to the ground. Simon's force field flickered as he struggled to regain his balance, and that was all it took.

Adam lunged for Jeanette, who was sprawled on the ground, and snatched her up. He yanked a dagger out from where it had been under his sleeve and pressed it to her throat.

"Nobody move," he said in a low voice.

No one did.

"Let go of me," Jeanette hissed.

"No," he hissed back.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Jeanette whispered with a smile.

"What?" He was taken off track.

SLAM!

She drove her foot into his kneecap as hard as she possibly could, and he let out a scream of pain. The dagger slipped, and he released her. She tumbled to the floor.

He stood over her, clutching the dagger. He advanced on her, raising it high above his head.

"That," he snarled, "was a big mistake."

Jeanette backed up as far as she could possibly go, but then she hit a wall and gulped.

There was no way out.

Adam raised the dagger and began to bring it down.

"NO!" Simon yelled, springing forward and blocking the blow with his sword.

Simon pushed Adam backward, away from Jeanette, who stumbled to her feet.

The two chipmunks squared off in the middle of the cave.

"This ends now," Adam snarled at him.

"I agree," Simon hissed back.

"No!" Jeanette put herself in between them. "Stop it, now!"

"Jeanette, get out of the way," Simon told her grimly.

Eleanor panicked and focused on the plant growing in the corner of the cave. The thick vine curled itself around Jeanette and pulled her away from the two chipmunks. Jeanette, terrified for Simon, covered her face with her hands and turned to face the wall.

Simon jumped at Adam first, and Adam blocked his blow. They fought ferociously, continuously getting hits on one another. It seemed as though Simon had the upper hand, because he deployed his force field whenever he could.

But then Adam let out a ferocious roar and knocked Simon to the ground with his sword. Simon was sprawled out on the floor, completely out cold.

Adam was advancing on Simon, his sword raised above his head, a look of complete and total fury on his face.

Jeanette felt paralyzed, frozen, stuck to the ground with panic and terror. It was just as though she was in the park again, and Ryan and the bullies were dangling Simon far up in the air. He seemed just as far away now, sprawled out on the ground, as he had been then.

_NO! _He wasn't that far away at all!

She could save him. She had to save him.

_Stop freezing up, _she commanded herself furiously. _Think! MOVE!_

And in that instant, she was sprinting toward Simon as fast as she could.

The sight of her sister running straight at Simon caused a wave of panic to crash over Brittany so fierce that her feet seemed to pull themselves forward of their own accord. "JEANETTE, NO!" she screamed, and then she was running after Jeanette.

"NO! BRITTANY, COME BACK!" Alvin yelled, tearing after her, but Brittany had too much of a head start. Jeanette, however, knew that she was being followed.

"NO, BRITTANY!" she yelled over her shoulder without breaking stride, and the ferocity in her sister's usually-gentle voice was enough to make Brittany freeze and falter. It was only for a small moment, but it was enough for Alvin to catch up to her. He managed to get one arm around her.

"No! Get off of me!" Brittany struggled against Alvin with all her might. Alvin was extremely strong, but Brittany had panic and fury on her side, fueling her. Alvin felt his grip weakening.

Desperately, he yanked backward as hard as he could. It was only enough to pull Brittany back a few inches, but a few inches was all Alvin needed. He managed to get his other arm around her, and then she was fighting a lost battle. He dragged her back away from the fight.

"Let go! Let go of me! JEANETTE! STOP!" Brittany screamed, fighting Alvin with all her strength.

Jeanette ignored her sister. Just as Adam was ready to bring the sword down, she reached Simon and collapsed, shielding his body with hers.

Adam froze.

Simon blinked in surprise. "No…Jeanette, get out of the way," he murmured, attempting to push her off. The attempt was so weak that she ignored it, staring defiantly up at Adam.

"Jeanette, move," he said through clenched teeth.

Jeanette stared up at him. "No," she said quietly.

Everyone was staring now, the room dead silent.

"If you kill him," she said, each word slow and distinct, "then you'll have to kill me, too."

They stared at each other for a long, long moment as Jeanette hugged Simon's limp body to her chest tightly. Adam stared into her eyes, her eyes that reminded his so much of Callie's…

_I can't do it, _he thought. _I can't._

He put the sword down.

Jeanette all but collapsed in relief.

Then he sprang at _her._

She closed her eyes and waited for the worst.

_Thud._

She looked up in astonishment to see Adam sprawled out on the ground. Then she saw Simon's hand up, and saw the force field.

She quickly stood up, but the force field worked two ways—he couldn't get in, but she couldn't get out.

"Simon, put it down, quick," she said.

He reluctantly did so. She hurried over to look at Adam.

"He's out cold, but he's not dead," she called to the others. Instantly, Simon expanded the force field over her again, and she rolled her eyes.

"Still as overprotective as you were before," she murmured, walking over to help him up.

"I've got a good reason," he murmured back.

"We have to get off of this rock, now," Jeanette called urgently.

They all got to their feet—Simon with some difficulty—and started for the door.

Just as Brittany reached the door to open it, it burst open and hit her hand, hard. She stumbled backwards and fell.

A guard bowled over Eleanor. Her wrist slammed into the ground as she tried to catch herself, and then she managed to push herself back up again. Another guard slammed hard into Alvin, and he was knocked to the ground. His hat actually fell off of his head, and he quickly replaced it. Then he saw the guard heading straight for Simon.

"Look out!" Alvin yelled.

Simon nearly broke his ankle when he twisted it away from one of the guards, but luckily, he was unhurt.

"Hurry up!" he yelled to the others. Jeanette was running in front of him toward the opening to the cave, and she stumbled. He didn't wait for her, but instantly scooped her up and kept going.

They ran through passageway after passageway, blindly trying to find the exit.

"There!" Theodore yelled. No one questioned him, due to his ability to see in the dark.

They charged out of the tunnel exit and into the blinding sunlight.

It was a different exit from the way they'd come, though. And this one was much higher up. And it was only a small ledge that six chipmunks could not all fit on and did not see.

They screamed as they all plummeted over the edge and into the dark water below.


	11. Chapter 11

**Here we are with the next chapter! My life has been super hectic lately, and I'm sorry I haven't updated in a long time. I'll try to be better about that now.**

** Enjoy!**

_Okay! _Alvin thought frantically. _Dire circumstance here! Power—save me!_

Nothing happened.

_Like, NOW, please!_

But nothing happened.

Jeanette tried desperately to hold onto Simon, but the current ripped her away. She tried to call out to him, but she was yanked under the water and all that came out were bubbles.

Eleanor was being tossed and twirled this way and that, not knowing what was happening or which way was up. She felt like she was in the world's biggest washing machine.

Theodore was trying to find the others, but he couldn't see a thing as waves crashed over his head again and again. He couldn't even focus enough to light the water and see where to go to find the others.

Simon was yelling for Jeanette, barely able to keep his head above the water, but she had been yanked away from him, and he didn't know where she was.

Brittany was focusing as hard as she could, trying to turn into a mermaid, but nothing was happening.

_The current must be too strong for the transformation to take place, _she thought frantically. _I can't change!_

Jeanette had given up fighting the current. She was being tossed and thrown about like the tiny, frail chipmunk that she was. She closed her eyes.

_Simon, I love you, _she thought.

Then she was driven into something hard and solid, so hard and solid that all the breath left her lungs in a whoosh of bubbles.

_What did I crash into?_

She worked as hard as she could, fighting and clawing her way to the surface.

She burst above the waves, gasping in cold, sweet lungfuls of air.

She peered up at what she had hit.

_A ship! It's a ship! It must be the ship that the others came to save me on!_

One wave carried her particularly high, and she saw a thick brown rope trailing over the side. She lunged and managed to nab it. Now she was dangling on the rope far above the waves.

"GUYS!" she screamed. "OVER HERE! THE SHIP! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?"

No one answered.

"SIMON! ALVIN! THEO! ELLIE! BRITT!"

Nothing.

Simon was being thrown and churned in the water, and he was still trying desperately to find Jeanette.

Then his head went above the surface, and he gasped air. But he could hear something else—someone calling.

"GUUUYS! OVER HERE! OVER HERE! I FOUND THE SHIP! SIMON! GUYS!"

_Jeanette!_

"I'M HERE!" he yelled back. "HERE, JEANETTE!"

"SIMON!" she yelled. "SIMON, HERE! GET OVER HERE, QUICK!"

He swam as hard as he could in the direction of her voice, and then he saw the ship. He wouldn't have made it, though, if a lucky wave hadn't carried him right up to it.

He saw Jeanette dangling from the rope that Brittany usually used to climb up and down. He jumped as high as he could and managed to snag it.

He climbed up to where she was, panting.

"Where are the others?" she cried. Miraculously, she still had her glasses, and so did Simon.

"I don't know," he replied frantically. "Quick, get up to the ship. We've got to find them."

She scrambled up to the deck and lifted herself over the rail, collapsing and coughing up seawater. Simon followed her, coughing himself.

"GUYS!" he yelled. "THEODORE! ELEANOR! ALVIN! BRITTANY!"

"Simon?"

The small voice came from directly beneath the ship.

"Theodore!" he yelled. "Here! The ship! We're up here!"

Theodore looked up and let out a gasp as he saw the ship looming over him. "The ship!" he cried. "The ship!" He grabbed the rope and began to climb.

"Where's Alvin? Where's Ellie?" he cried when he got on deck.

"I don't know," Simon replied frantically. "They're still out there, and so is Brittany."

"Someone call my name?"

Alvin was below, clutching a bedraggled and wet Brittany around the waist. She was coughing fiercely.

"Up here!" Theodore yelled, waving a paw frantically. Alvin clambered up the rope with one hand and held tight to Brittany with the other.

"Where's Eleanor?" Theodore asked frantically.

"I don't know," Brittany whispered. "I'm sorry. I couldn't see. It's raining and dark out here…"

It was indeed raining, and they could barely see a thing.

Eleanor was still in the water, being tossed and crashed about. She didn't know which way to turn. She thought she'd heard people yelling earlier, but she didn't know where they were. She couldn't see anything in the rainy darkness.

Theodore dashed to the front of the boat and held his hand out. Flashlight beams of light flew out from them. He focused as hard as he could and they grew brighter, and brighter, and brighter, so bright that the others had to look away.

Eleanor managed to surface, but she couldn't see or hear a thing. It was all darkness and the crashing of the waves.

Then she saw a brilliant light, shining brighter than the sun. She squinted up at it, and then grinned. She only knew one person who could make that kind of light.

"Theodore," she tried to yell, but her voice was raspy and tired, and it didn't go very far.

"ELEANOR! ELLIE!" she heard Theodore yelling, and knew that he saw her, due to his ability to see through the darkness.

She heard a whistling noise, and a life preserver landed next to her with a splash. She used her last bit of strength to climb up onto it and was barely able to cling to it as they pulled her in.

She saw the ship going closer and closer, but she barely cared anymore. She was so tired…she just…wanted…to sleep.

She closed her eyes…

"What's the matter with her? Is she all right? What happened?"

Theodore's shrill voice rose above the others.

"I think she just fell asleep," Brittany soothed him. "She looks just fine."

"She looks wet," Jeanette commented.

"We all do," Simon pointed out. "We just fell in the ocean while it was raining."

"That's true," Jeanette conceded. She and Simon smiled at each other and shared yet another tight hug. They hadn't strayed a foot away from each other since Simon had rescued Jeanette.

"Why wasn't I able to turn into a mermaid, though?" Brittany frowned. "I don't understand it."

"Maybe it's just because the current was so strong," Theodore suggested.

Simon looked down at her hand and gasped. "Or maybe…" His voice trailed off and he swallowed hard. "Maybe it's because your ring is gone."

"Don't be ridiculous," Brittany snapped. "My ring is not—," She looked down and let out a shriek when she saw her bare finger.

"My ring!" she cried.

Simon looked down and gasped. "Oh, no! My anklet!" he cried, pointing. The cord was still there, but the blue jewel was gone.

Alvin took his cap off hurriedly and looked down at it. He gasped and pointed. One of the studded jewels was missing.

"My jewel is gone, too!" he said miserably.

"So is mine," Eleanor coughed in a small voice. They all looked down at her in astonishment to see that her green gem was gone from her bracelet.

"I didn't know you were awake, Ellie," Theodore said, hurrying to her side.

"My gem is gone," Eleanor whispered, gesturing to the silver charm bracelet.

"You guys all got gems, too?" Jeanette's voice was startled.

They all looked at her, remembering that she hadn't been on the ship with them when they'd all gotten their jewels.

"What do you mean, _too?" _Simon asked her.

She reached into her dress and tugged the necklace out, displaying the purple gem dangling from the end.

"Wow," Simon whispered, fingering it gently.

"At least you still have yours," Brittany said glumly.

"I have mine, too," Theodore pointed out, pointing down to the bright green jewel still firmly implanted on his pin.

Then there was a loud laugh from behind them.

They all whipped around and could just barely make out Adam, leaning on the rock ledge, perfectly relaxed.

"Looking for these?" he called out, holding his hand out.

Four gems sparkled in his palm—a normal pink one, a normal pastel green one, a normal blue one, and a shining, sparkling red one.

"Aw, Adam got our gems!" Brittany wailed.

"We have to get them back!" Alvin cried. "My gem still has my powers in it! We can't let Adam get our powers!"

"He's right," Theodore said immediately. "We've got to get them back."

Simon groaned. "Fine, fine. We'll get them back, and then we're going _straight home to Dave."_

"What about Adam? We can't just let him get away with this!" Brittany cried, outraged. "He's kidnapped her and hurt her!"

"Dave will know what to do," Simon said firmly. "I'm not having Adam on the same ship as Jeanette, and especially not for three weeks."

"That's true," Eleanor conceded. "He might hurt her. Or any of us."

Adam laughed once more and then vanished inside his fortress once again.

"We have to dry off and prepare ourselves," Simon continued. "C'mon, Jeanette, let's go downstairs."

The two chipmunks started to go down to the lower decks when they heard a small voice over the edge of the ship.

"Hey! Heeeey! Room for one more?"

Jeanette dashed to the edge of the ship and looked down. Her face split into a smile.

"Monique!" she cried. "Here, grab the rope!"

Monique grabbed it and began to climb. Soon she was on the deck.

Jeanette gave her a big hug. "You came back!" she said happily.

"Of course I did, Miss Jeanette," Monique said warmly. "We've become such good friends…I just couldn't leave you."

Jeanette, beaming, grabbed Monique's paw and led her over to Simon. "Monique," she said breathlessly, "this is Simon, my boyfriend." She smiled lovingly at Simon. "He's the one that I told you all about."

To everyone's surprise, Monique ran up and hugged Simon.

"Um…" Simon was confused.

"Thank you so much for saving Miss Jeanette," Monique exclaimed.

"She hugs people when she wants to say thank you," Jeanette explained in a low voice, trying hard to stifle a grin. "Just give her a hug back."

Simon awkwardly hugged Monique back, and then Monique hurried over to hug each of the other chipmunks.

Simon and Jeanette smiled at each other again and headed downstairs.

Simon caught Jeanette up on everything that had happened. She took a deep breath.

"Wow," she whispered. "That was a lot."

"So, what happened with you and Adam?" Simon raised an eyebrow.

Jeanette fidgeted and looked down at the bed.

"Is it really that bad?" Simon's voice was testy.

"Simon," Jeanette said firmly. "I did not do anything with him. I didn't even touch him."

He seemed a bit relieved.

"You know that I'm in love with you, not him," she told him firmly. "I never touched him. Granted," she muttered under her breath, "_he _touched _me…"_

"Excuse me?" Simon's voice was sharp again.

"I…nothing. It's nothing." She avoided his eye and busily put her hair up in its normal ponytail after tugging it out of its braid.

"Jeanette."

She squirmed slightly under his gaze. "Look, it's just going to make you mad, so I don't see any point in…"

"I want to know, Jeanette."

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

"And you're a bad liar," he added. "Keep that in mind."

She sighed again and flopped back on the bed. "Okay. When we came in first, I was still in that cat carrier. He let the spider bite me first thing, and it didn't work, so they ran a bunch of tests…" She shivered, remembering the needles and horrible tests that they'd made her go through.

Simon cast her a look, but she ignored it and plowed on with her story. "He was making a plan," she said quietly. "He was going to make me pretend that I was in love with him to get revenge on you. Then he was going to figure out what was in the cure and change me into Callie…and you back into Simone."

Simon sat on the bed, thunderstruck, but Jeanette still wouldn't meet his eyes.

"How did you get so hurt, then?" Simon frowned.

Jeanette sighed. "He kept threatening me to go along with it," she whispered, "and when I said no, he…he…"

"HE did that?" Simon yelled, jumping to his feet.

"I told you this would just make you angry," Jeanette pleaded. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's fine. It's done now. He can't hurt me anymore. I'm fine. Please, let's just stop talking about it."

She reached up and pulled Simon back down on the bed. He was quiet for a while, and then he said evenly, "How often did he do it?"

Jeanette shivered.

"Jeanette."

"Every day," she whispered, her eyes tightly closed.

She felt him tense up immediately.

"I'm gonna kill him," he muttered.

"Simon, just leave him alone," Jeanette begged. "I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

"I'll be fine, Jeanette," he assured her, brushing a stray hair out of her face. She smiled slightly. She had missed his touch so much.

"I never stopped waiting for you," she whispered to him. "Never, ever. I missed you so much."

"I missed you, too," he whispered. "And I never stopped looking for you. Never, ever."

"I thought…I thought…" Jeanette was suddenly crying. "I thought that Adam was going to kill you," she whispered after a moment. "I thought I'd never see you again…"

"It's okay, Jeanette," Simon whispered, pulling her close. "I'm here now. And I'll never let him hurt you again."

He laid down on the bed, and she curled up next to him, her head on his shoulder.

They stayed like that for a very long time. Finally, they fell asleep.

Brittany hurried down the stairs to ask what the game plan was, but stopped midsentence when she saw that they were both fast asleep.

Smiling slightly, she backed out of the room and went back up on deck. Yes, getting the gems back was very important. But it could wait for a bit longer.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey, there, chipmunk fans! I'm really sorry that I haven't been updating regularly thus far, but I've got exams coming up, and my life has been super hectic right now. I WILL NOT QUIT, THOUGH. I will keep writing. I am not a quitter.**

** Although I do now have a bit more sympathy toward those who DO quit.**

** Please just hang in there with me! I'll get through this. Soon it will be summer, and I'll have a lot more time to write my stories.**

** Enjoy this next chapter!**

Simon paced back and forth, back and forth. He knew what he had to do, but he didn't want to do it.

_She's going to be so mad at me…but I have to. I don't have a choice._

He went downstairs to Jeanette, where she was preparing.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" he asked as everyone on deck got ready to go back to the fortress.

"Sure," she nodded. They stepped into one of the more spacious, upper-deck cabins.

Simon took a deep breath. "Jeanette, I don't think you should go to the fight," he said, deploying Plan A.

She stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Jeanette, it's going to be really dangerous," he tried to explain. "I just don't want you to get hurt. You don't have your powers yet, and—,"

"I'm very touched that you want to look out for me, Si," Jeanette told him gently. "But I have to go. I need to go with you."

Simon opened his mouth to argue the point further, but he stopped, seeing the firm fire in her eyes and knowing that nothing he said would change her mind now.

_Okay then. Time for Plan B._

He opened his mouth, and then frowned and looked over his shoulder. "Um…could you excuse me for just a second?"

Jeanette nodded curiously, and he left the room.

She turned and walked toward one of the chairs, but a muted thud from behind stopped her. She turned and saw that the wind had blown the door shut.

Relaxing slightly, she walked over to open it, but then heard the scrape and click of a key turning in a lock.

She frowned. "Um…Simon?" she called, knocking gently on the door. "I think something locked the door by accident. Could you open it for me?"

There was a long, long silence outside. Finally, a low voice answered, "No."

Jeanette frowned, thinking she hadn't heard him right. "Simon?" Her voice was a bit sharper. "Open the door."

"I can't, Jeanette. I'm sorry."

"Simon, that's not funny," she snapped. "Let me out."

"I'm sorry," she heard him whisper again. "I can't."

Then it dawned on her. "YOU locked the door!" She tried the doorknob, and of course, it didn't work. She hammered on the door. "Simon Seville, let me out NOW!"

"I love you," she heard him whisper, and then his footsteps were receding down the corridor.

She pounded on the door, yelling for him to come back and let her out, but he didn't. After a while, there was no sound.

"They left!" she fumed. "They left without me. That's just dandy. Fine time for him to get overprotective!" She paced back and forth in the small room. "I never should have told him what I did…Adam didn't hurt me that badly…now everyone else is going off to the fight without me! I cannot believe him. I TOLD him that I needed to go with him!"

She flopped down on the chair with an aggravated huff, and it was then that she noticed the note on the table. Frowning, she picked it up and noted that it was Simon's handwriting.

_My Dearest Jeanette,_

_ If you are reading this note, it means that Plan A did not work and I had to resort to Plan B. Based on the fact that Plan A was talking you out of going to the fight and into staying behind on the ship, I know for a fact that you are reading this note._

Jeanette couldn't help but half-smile at that.

_Everyone thinks that you're the shy, sweet one of the bunch, and that may be true. But I know that when you want something, you can be just as stubborn as Brittany._

_ Look, you're very, very smart, and I'm sure you've already figured out what's going on here, but I'm going to come out and say it anyway. Yes, I did lock you in there on the ship to keep you from going to the fight. I know you're really mad at me right now, and probably really frustrated, but please keep in mind that I'm doing this because I don't want you to get hurt._

_ I have put you through so much in the past few months_

"Oh, Simon, none of this was your fault," Jeanette whispered, her eyes filling up with tears. She blinked them away, reread the line, and continued on.

_I have put you through so much in the past few months, and if you think that I'm going to risk you again when I don't have to you, then you've got another thing coming._

Jeanette half-smiled again.

_Just please remember that I'm doing this because I care about you. I love you, Jeanette. You are the most precious thing in my life right now. And I can't let you go to that fight. I can't lose you._

_ Not again._

_ Always Yours,_

_ Simon_

Jeanette sighed glumly and stared at the piece of paper. She felt herself melting, despite her annoyance at Simon. She did love him a lot, and she smiled and was touched to know how much he truly cared about her.

But she had to get to the fight! She couldn't just let him go alone. He could get hurt, or killed, and what if she wasn't there to help him? What if she could have been there to help him?

Then she gasped. "The windows!" There were two French doors that opened out to the night. She loved the view, but now she could use them to get off the ship. She dashed over to the windows and tried the lock.

Then she saw the thick combination lock that was clasped securely over the door handles.

She frowned and pulled the piece of paper that was wedged in the lock out. It was in Simon's handwriting again.

_You can't honestly think I haven't thought of that._

She growled to herself as she crumpled the paper and threw it to the ground.

Then she heard soft footsteps outside her cabin. She raced over to the door, recognizing those footfalls.

"Monique?" she called.

There was a long pause.

"Yes, miss?" came the soft reply at last.

Jeanette relaxed slightly. "So you're out here, too, then, huh?"

"Yes, miss."

"Monique, we've been over this. You don't have to call me Miss all the time."

"It makes me more comfortable, miss."

"Monique, really."

"Please, miss, just let me say it." She heard annoyance tinged with amusement in Monique's voice.

"All right, all right," Jeanette grumbled. "Did Simon force you to stay here, too?"

"No, Miss Jeanette. He asked me to, though, in case you needed someone to talk to. And, to be honest, I didn't really want to go back into that horrid fortress, anyway."

"You must have been a servant there for a long time, huh?" Jeanette felt suddenly sympathetic toward the young chipmunk.

"Yes, miss. But not for too long. Just ever since you came back and Adam left."

"I see."

"I worked for Callie and Adam when they were still superstars, Miss Jeanette. Not as a servant, but as a…helper of sorts. My job was complicated. More of a stagehand."

"I don't remember you," Jeanette said slowly.

"Do you remember everything that Callie did, miss?"

"Oh, heavens, no. I actually don't remember most of it. Just some parts. Bits and flashes of the very important things. I remember her audition…her first concert." She swallowed. "I remember that first night in the maple tree when she and Adam sang together…"

"Do you remember when they met, miss?"

"No, Monique, I don't remember that part." Jeanette sounded sad. "I have a lot of memories of Adam, though…he was so kind. So sweet. What happened to him? He's just…just evil now."

"Yes." Monique's voice was sad. "He used to be so kind."

"Monique?" Jeanette was very quiet. "What was Callie like?"

Monique was silent for a long time, too. Finally she answered, "Callie was nice enough. She was kind of caught up in her future, though, and didn't notice others a lot. She wasn't vain or proud, but she focused a lot on her career and not on other people…except for Adam."

"How did she treat you?"

"She was nice to me…but she didn't notice me that often."

"Oh…"

"We never got close enough to be friends, and I don't miss her that much. I like you much better, Miss Jeanette. You are kind to everyone you meet, even Adam, when he doesn't deserve it."

"What happened to him, though?" Jeanette asked sadly.

Monique sighed from the other side of the door. "He was just a humble chipmunk at first," she said with equal sadness in her voice. "He worked his way up through the world from a small town and became a stagehand for Callie. He was quiet and polite, but he was lonely. Then he was giving Callie some water one night—the first night of her concert, actually. He was enchanted with her." Jeanette heard the smile and the wistfulness in Monique's voice.

"He was enchanted with her," Monique repeated, sighing slightly. "But he didn't think that he'd ever see her again. For the first time, all his loneliness was brought to the surface. He wanted to be friends with her. He wanted her to love him, because he was in love with her.

"Then, one night, he was out walking and thinking about how lonely he was when he heard her singing. And when he heard that, it led him to start singing, something he hadn't done since he was little. But he was good—really good.

"Callie's adoptive mom Zoe—I think you know her—she was sad that Callie was so lonely, so she made Adam Callie's business partner. At least, that's what they called it officially. They became superstars together. They were both in love with one another, and you've never seen a better pair when they were onstage. They were best friends and would talk together in that maple tree every night.

"But he didn't know that Callie was holding a prisoner in her mind. He didn't know that you were still in there, too. All he knew was that he had reservations, boundaries, every day of his life. He was humble and polite, but cool and distant. He didn't interact with many people unless it was necessary. But when Callie came…she changed all of that. She broke those barriers, and he loved her more than anything. He was still polite, but he was less reserved, less taut and tense. He was happy.

"Then when Mr. Simon changed you back, Adam's brain instantly recognized that he was never going to get Callie back. My theory is that his brain instantly tried to withdraw behind its boundaries again, just like it had been before Callie was around. But Callie had been through, and his boundaries were shattered, broken. He couldn't conceal himself again, but there was nothing there to keep him in front of his boundaries. So I think that his mind got stuck in between somewhere. I'm not sure he's quite right in the head anymore."

Jeanette was feeling immensely guilty at this point.

"It's all right, Miss Jeanette." It was as though Monique had heard Jeanette's thoughts. "Adam has to accept that Callie isn't here. You were a prisoner in Callie's mind."

"But what if it's the other way around?" Jeanette asked miserably. "What if Callie's in there somewhere? What if she's a prisoner in MY mind?"

"She's not, Miss Jeanette."

"How do you know?" Jeanette cried angrily, kicking the door.

"The tests Adam ran proved that Callie was no longer there," Monique said quietly.

"Then where is she?" Jeanette was desperate.

"Callie is you, Miss Jeanette. She's a part of you."

Jeanette saw the logic in this, but it didn't make her feel any better.

She frowned and knocked over the fruit bowl on the table. "Stupid fruit bowl," she muttered. Then an apple rolled across the table. "Stupid apple," she snapped. "Why can't you be a nicer fruit, like an orange? At least I don't need to use my toothpicks after I'm done eating an _orange."_

_ What am I saying? _Jeanette thought desperately. _I'm yelling at an apple for not being an orange. Wow. I must be going insane._

_ Wait a minute…_

_ I don't need to use my toothpicks…_

_ My toothpicks!_

She yanked one out of her pocket and dashed over to the door. She carefully began to pick the lock. Then she expectantly tugged at the handle.

Nothing happened.

_What?!_

"I'm afraid that's not going to help, Miss Jeanette." Monique's calm voice came from the other side of the door. "He's taken off the knob on this end of the door and put a handle there instead, and there's a combination lock on the handle."

Jeanette groaned. "Don't suppose you know the combination, do you?"

"Why would I know?" Monique snorted.

Jeanette sighed.

"Now I have two combination locks to figure out," she muttered.

"Simon prototypes his locks, didn't you know?" Monique chuckled.

"Yeah, they're all the same combination," she remembered, sighing slightly.

Then she froze.

"But how would _you _know that?" she asked slowly.

Monique suddenly felt nervous. "Er…I…"

"You DO know the combination! Monique, let me out!" Jeanette banged on the door.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Miss Jeanette." Monique's voice was still calm.

"Why not?" Jeanette snapped.

"Because Mr. Simon made it very clear what would happen to me if I did." Her voice was grim now.

"He couldn't hurt a flea," she growled, slumping down in one of the chairs.

"That and you need the key for this kind of lock as well, and Mr. Simon still has the key with him," she added. "I couldn't get you out of there if I wanted to."

Jeanette sighed, but felt slightly mollified. At least she knew that Monique would probably help her if she could.


	13. Chapter 13

**Hi, all! I decided to update a little early this time because I've been doing it so late recently. I hope that you enjoy!**

"Are we almost there?" Simon whispered.

"Yes," Theodore whispered back. "I can see him. He's just down there." He pointed into the pure, absolute darkness that no one else could see through.

"He's just standing there in the dark?" They could hear the frown in Eleanor's voice.

"No, there's a cave at the end of the hallway," Theodore whispered back, sounding surprised. "Can't…can't you see it?"

"No," Brittany said flatly. "I can't do anything weird like that. My power's gone."

"We're getting our gems back, Britt," Eleanor said firmly to her sister. "Don't worry."

Brittany fidgeted slightly and tried to see farther.

Then they heard Adam.

"These are the gems, then?" His voice was sneering.

"Yes, sir," a guard said.

"Hmm…the powers have been depleted, though…all except this red one."

"I believe that one's Alvin's, sir."

"I don't care whose it is," Adam snarled. "I care whose is missing!"

"As far as we can see, sir, there are only two you didn't get."

"The dark green one," Adam muttered, "and the purple one. The green one must belong to that fat one."

Theodore scowled.

"And the purple one…oh, yes." They heard horrible anger curling through his voice. "Yes, that one belongs to our friend Jeanette."

Simon clenched his fists.

"Why aren't you going after them, sir?"

"Because I'm going to lure them here," Adam replied. "Of course they'll come after their jewels. Of course. And when they do, they will be eliminated."

"Which ones, boss?"

"Well, the two fat ones, certainly." Eleanor and Theodore gritted their teeth. "I may keep Alvin or Brittany…they could be useful if they were forced to obey."

Brittany and Alvin smirked at that.

"Our friend Simon, certainly. He's been left alive for too long. We will find the antidote to the cure without him."

"And Jeanette?"

"Do whatever you want with her to apprehend her, but she must be kept alive. Do you get that? _Alive. _I don't care if she's damaged, but she has to be alive."

Simon had to hold himself back.

"Oh, yes," Adam said in a softer tone. "I have plans for little miss Jeanette." Menace was thick in his voice, and all the chipmunks shivered.

They all edged closer until the others could see the light from the cave. They waited until they were right next to it.

"Hey, sir, did you hear something?"

"NOW!" Simon yelled, and they all sprang into the room.

Adam was there with only four guards. Adam held the jewels in his paw, and he looked absolutely astonished to see the five chipmunks springing into the room. Simon instantly lunged for Adam, but Adam pulled up a sword out of nowhere and knocked him to the ground again.

His brothers helped him to his feet again, and he grinned and held out a pink gem that he had managed to grab from Adam. Brittany shrieked and lunged forward, grabbing it. As soon as her fingers touched it, it turned into a ring again. She let out a sigh of relief and slipped it quickly onto her finger.

Adam's eyes slid over the chipmunks again and again, and his fists clenched when he saw who was missing.

_How on earth did he get her to stay behind?_

_ Well…he probably just asked her nicely. She'd do anything for her precious Simon._

"All right, wise guy," Alvin snarled. "We're only gonna ask you once. Give us our gems back now. Or we'll take them."

Adam laughed and tauntingly dangled the three remaining gems in front of him. "Come and get them," he sneered.

Alvin made a grab for them, but that's what Adam had been waiting for. He dodged easily and Alvin fell to the floor. Then Adam advanced, sword raised.

He would've brought it down on Alvin, too, if he hadn't been hit with a water ball square in the face.

SMACK!

He sputtered and spluttered, dropping the sword as he staggered backward. He dropped the red gem by mistake.

"Take THAT!" Brittany yelled. "No one touches my boyfriend!"

"Oh, yeah. I forgot that you can do the thing with the water balls, too," Alvin realized, quickly snatching up his gem. As soon as he did, he pushed it into place on his hat, smiling as it stuck there firmly.

Adam snarled as he wiped his face off with his sleeve. He still firmly clutched Eleanor's and Simon's gems in his hand.

Brittany pelted him with three more water balls, one after another, right in a row, and he went down again. He almost dropped Eleanor's gem, and Alvin saw an opening and slammed into him, hard. Ellie's gem fell to the ground.

Brittany sprinted forward and ducked low, scooping it off the ground. She turned to run back to her sister, but the guards instantly closed in on her from every side.

Brittany thought fast. She balanced the gem on the top of her finger and then made water spurt out of her fingertips. The water catapulted the gem through the air, and it soared up and then down, landing smack dab in the middle of Eleanor's palm.

"Bulls-eye!" Eleanor cheered, quickly slipping the bracelet back onto her wrist and motioning to the plants in the corner. They wrapped around the ankles of the guards surrounding Brittany, and they went down, too.

"Yeah!" Brittany cheered, throwing her hands in the air. But she didn't see Adam creeping up behind her.

With a sword.

Adam began to bring the sword down, and Brittany turned and saw him. Her expression changed almost instantly from excitement to terror. Alvin saw all this in slow motion.

"NOOOO!" he screamed, and it was then that his gem began to grow hot.

The silvery things in it burst out and slipped into his body much faster than the others had, and he found that he was glowing and shaking. The lights inside his gem faded, and it was just ordinary and red again.

And then he was running toward Brittany.

Everything still looked like it was happening in slow motion. He didn't understand that.

"Is my power to make everyone else go in slow motion?" he wondered as he ran. He got to Brittany in plenty of time, with the sword still a foot or two over her head, scooped her up, and continued to run until he got to the far wall and stopped.

Then everything began to speed up again until it was normal.

Then he realized as everyone gawked at him that they hadn't been moving slowly. He was moving faster. Much, much faster.

"I've got superspeed!" he cheered, pumping a paw in the air and holding onto Brittany with the other. "Yes!"

"Alvin, you saved my life!" Brittany cried, hugging him tightly.

"Of course I did," Alvin said cockily, and she smacked him.

He grinned at her and set her on her feet again.

Then a guard ran at them. Alvin pulled his fist back and slammed it into the guard's stomach.

And the guard flew all the way across the room, slammed into the rock wall, BROKE it, and flew into the next room.

Alvin stared at his fist in astonishment, and then back at the guard.

"I think you have superstrength, too," Brittany said after an awkward pause, and Alvin laughed in delight.

Adam scrambled to his feet and ran for the door.

"Theo, make it dark!" Alvin yelled. Theodore concentrated as hard as he could, and instantly, all the torches in the room flickered and went out. There was still a bit of light left from the weak sunlight that filtered in through one or two holes in the ceiling, and Theodore focused more. The beams of light filtering in just…vanished, and darkness flew over all of them like a blanket.

Alvin heard a thud and smiled. Adam couldn't see, and he had run into the wall.

"Light on Adam!" Alvin yelled to his brother, and Theodore made a single beam of light fall on Adam so that Alvin could see where he was. Alvin used his new superspeed to dart across the room and snatch Simon's blue gem from Adam's hand.

Then Theodore made the light reappear. The torches flickered back on and everyone could see again. Alvin zipped over to Simon faster than his brother could blink and handed him his gem back. Simon leaned down and it was reattached to his ankle.

"Rocking powers, bro," Simon said with a grin, throwing his hands out and extending the force field to cover them all.

They quickly grouped in the center of the room.

"'Bye, now, Adam," Simon smirked at him. "Take care."

"Get back here!" Adam roared.

Simon laughed at him as the chipmunks ran for the exit, the force field still surrounding them. "Jeanette says hi!" he yelled over his shoulder as they vanished into the passageway.

Fury washed over Adam like he'd never felt before. He lunged for Simon, but Simon was already gone.

"I'll get you, Simon," Adam growled, visibly shaking and trembling from head to toe. "I'll get you and your precious Jeanette. Just you wait."

"Shouldn't we go after them, sir?" asked one of the guards.

"No," Adam said with a smile. "I've got a plan. It's already in action."


	14. Chapter 14

**I'm back!**

** Hostfanatic is in the house!**

** I know it's been a long time, and I'm so, so sorry! My life has just been super hectic right now with exams coming up and all.**

** I'm almost done with the story, though, so enjoy!**

"We have to kidnap Adam," Brittany said firmly.

"I'm not letting him on the same ship as Jeanette for three weeks!" Simon snapped. They had been having this argument the entire way down the passageway.

"We have ways of containing him," Brittany insisted. "We can find out how to do it. We can't wait until we get home, Simon. He'll have moved already!"

Simon paused and took a deep breath as they reached the front of the caves. The same way they had come in the first time. The ship was far out on the waves, bobbing calmly under the light of the full moon.

"All right," he said at last. "I have to go make sure Jeanette is all right. If I have you go back and plant a GPS chip on Adam, then we can track him to wherever he's moved."

"Yeah," they all chorused.

"So you guys have to go and find a way to get the GPS on him, and then get straight back to the ship so that we can get out of here," Simon said firmly.

"All right," Brittany said quickly. "But we have to work fast, Simon. We've got to get out of here before he comes after us."

"All right. Brittany, could you please get me to the ship?"

Brittany nodded. She jumped over the ledge, doing a perfect swan dive into the water. There was a flash of light, and she resurfaced as a mermaid.

"I missed that," she sighed.

They rolled their eyes, but didn't comment. Simon gulped.

_Jeanette, _he reminded himself. _You're doing this for Jeanette._

He turned and carefully began inching his way down the rock wall that led into the ocean. Brittany waited patiently in the water at the bottom.

When Simon was there, he cautiously reached out and clambered onto Brittany's back, being very careful not to touch the water. She rolled her eyes but flicked her tail and sped Simon to the ship. He gratefully grabbed a rope and pulled himself up and away from the water.

Brittany waved to him. "Wait," he called, and pulled the GPS chip out of his pocket. He tossed it down to Brittany, and she caught it in her hands. "Put that on Adam," he told her, and then waved back. He turned to clamber up the side of the ship.

He flipped himself up and over the rail, landing on the deck with a firm thud as Brittany and the others vanished back inside the rock fortress.

_I hope that I did the right thing, _he thought to himself.

He ran down the short flight of stairs that led to the cabin Jeanette was in.

He knocked on it. "Jeanette?" he called.

"I'm not speaking to you," came the grumpy answer from inside.

He rolled his eyes, but relief flooded through him. "Are you all right?"

"No." Still sarcastic. "I'm on the floor, bleeding to death. You'd better come in here and save me. Then again, you might want to stay out there, or you might JOIN me here on the floor."

"Ha, ha," Simon said, equally sarcastic. "You're real funny, Jeanette." He couldn't help but smile as he prepared to unlock the combination lock on the door, but he knew that she was smiling, too.

"What's funny, then, pretty boy?"

The rough, gravelly voice that came from behind him certainly did not belong to Jeanette.

Simon whirled around and saw a chipmunk standing on deck, bathed in moonlight. He was wearing black from head to toe.

And he was pointing a gun straight at Simon.

Jeanette heard the strange voice, and then the loudest silence she'd ever heard came after.

"Simon," she barely breathed, "what's going on?"

She heard the barest hint of a whisper come back. _"Get away from the door."_

She carefully moved away from the door.

"Adam sent you, huh?" Simon's voice was loud and sarcastic now, and she knew that he wasn't talking to her anymore, but the strange intruder that she'd heard.

"Just give me the girl."

"You wish."

BANG!

The sound was unmistakably a gunshot. There was a thud, and the bullet ripped through the doorway. Jeanette pressed herself against the wall, horrified, and now understanding why Simon had told her to get away from the door.

_But did Simon get hit?_

Her heart began pounding, faster and harder and louder still, and she was sure that the stranger could hear it.

But then she heard Simon's familiar voice, a bit mocking, a bit sarcastic. "Temper, temper."

Jeanette let out a tiny sigh of relief. She was suddenly glad that Monique had gone to the lower decks for a while, and could only hope that she had decided to stay there. She didn't want her friend getting hurt.

Then she realized that the handle had been completely blown off the door.

_The lock…that means the lock's broken! I can get out! I have to help Simon!_

"Move away from the door," she whispered to Simon.

"Why?" he whispered back, clearly suspicious.

"If you hover by the door, he'll know something's in there!" she hissed. "Hurry!"

She heard him moving up the stairs. "Funny, I never had Adam pegged for the type that would send someone else to do his dirty work."

"I ain't here to make conversation," she heard the other chipmunk snarl. "I'm here for the girl. Now where is she?"

"She's here _somewhere, _clearly." Simon's voice was lazy.

Jeanette waited until she was sure that they were on the upper deck. Then she tiptoed over and tested the door. It swung silently open, the combination lock broken and on the floor.

She saw them up on the deck, and neither one was facing her. They were near the rail.

"What did you do to the others?" The chipmunk's voice was suspicious.

"I'm not telling you." Simon's voice was firm. Neither saw Jeanette sneak on deck and begin to climb up the mast.

She heard the chipmunk cock the gun and winced, but continued to climb. Neither one saw her.

_Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down, _she chanted in her head as she focused on getting higher.

"All right, all right," Simon said quickly, taking a step back. "They're on the lifeboat, trying to contact our emergency backup, okay? They went east somewhere. I don't know where. But they said they'd be back soon."

"I don't have time for this." The chipmunk was impatient. He suddenly dove and snatched Simon's anklet, snapping it off and throwing it overboard. Simon lunged for it, but it sank into the waves below. Terrified now, Simon faced the chipmunk again…who was getting ready to shoot him.

Jeanette stood up on the mast, wobbling slightly as she grabbed the rope tightly. _You only have one chance to do this, _she told herself firmly. _Do it right!_

Then she looked down.

She had to stifle her shriek as she nearly fell off the mast. Her world spun dizzyingly as she clung hard to the wooden beam.

_Focus! Focus! _

_ But it's SO HIGH…_

Jeanette shoved her fear of heights to the back of her mind as hard as she could. She squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed the rope tightly.

Then she jumped.

She screamed as she flew through the air, and both Simon and the strange chipmunk looked up in astonishment. She soared down over the deck on the rope. As she got lower and lower and nearer to the two, she put her feet out.

WHAM! She drove both of her feet into the strange chipmunk's chest as hard as she could, and he went down like a bag of rocks. The gun skittered across the deck.

Jeanette slipped.

She tumbled to the deck, slamming into it hard and landing sprawled out with her face against the wood.

Simon instantly dove forward and snatched up the gun. He aimed it carefully at the chipmunk on the deck who was just getting to his feet.

"Are you all right, Jeanette?" he called over his shoulder, not daring to take his eyes off the black-clad chipmunk.

Jeanette groaned as she shoved herself to her feet. "I am so not doing that again," she gasped, the wind knocked out of her. She tried to step forward but wound up on the deck again. She managed to pull herself up onto the bench, coughing.

Simon grinned. "Thanks, Jean. You saved my life."

"Don't mention it," Jeanette gasped, still clutching her chest.

Simon, concerned, turned to face her—and the black-clad chipmunk slammed into him, hard. Simon fell to the ground and the gun skittered across the deck once again.

The chipmunk lunged for Jeanette and grabbed her around the throat with both hands. She choked, gasping for breath.

"You little brat," he snarled. Jeanette looked desperately, but a bench had fallen on top of Simon, and he was trapped.

"I'm going to need some type of story when I get back," the chipmunk hissed in her face, lifting her into the air. "Maybe I was trying to get to her, but Simon blocked me. So she fell overboard." Jeanette's eyes widened as she gasped for breath. He squeezed her tighter. "Poor, helpless Jeanette. I wasn't able to save her. And Simon was killed, of course."

Simon was desperately trying to shove the bench off of him.

"Say goodbye," the chipmunks snarled at Jeanette.

Then he whirled and hurled her overboard.

Jeanette screamed as she fell through the air. The sky spun above her, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Then she felt a cold, stinging smack, and felt as though she were weightless, floating…she felt nothing.

_This is what it's like to drown, _she thought sadly.

Then she opened her eyes.

She couldn't see anything but light.

The light from her gem?

It was surrounding her, weaving itself into a cocoon. She looked around desperately, but she couldn't see anything. The silvery swirls and patterns flew out of her gem and sunk into her body one by one. She shivered. It was a cold, tingly, delicious feeling.

Then the light faded.

And she found that she wasn't in the water at all.

She was floating in midair.

She let out a gasp and stared down at herself in wonder. Then she turned and let out another gasp.

She had wings!

They were a beautiful light purple color, and they were streaked with a deep indigo. She shivered and expertly flapped them, and she instantly shot several feet into the air.

Laughing with delight, she flapped them harder, and she went shooting higher, spiraling upward into the sky. She let out a whoop as she twirled and spun around, stretching her wings out and feeling the rush of wind in them. She shivered in delight and stared down at the sea, so far away. She felt no fear at all. How had she been afraid of this sensation before?

Then she remembered Simon.

She instantly halted and hovered in the air, trying to find him. Then she saw the black-clad chipmunk aiming the gun at her.

She instantly swerved just as he fired, and she felt the bullet whistle past.

She let out a little gasp and dipped several feet before remembering to flap.

_Quick! Focus. Get to Simon. He can help._

She whirled, tucked her wings in, and rocketed toward the deck, pulling out of the dive just in time to hit the deck near Simon. She tumbled slightly, made a mental note to work on her landings, and ran to Simon. Together, they shoved the bench off of him.

Then Jeanette screamed and shoved Simon down to the deck as another bullet whistled past.

"Hang on!" she cried. She pushed the bench in front of him to shield him and then dove overboard.

She spiraled high up into the sky, and then aimed herself downward and went into another extremely fast dive. She closed her eyes.

SMACK!

It hurt so, so bad to hit the water that hard, but she got what she had been aiming for—she rocketed underwater, going farther and farther down. She knew that it was hopeless to get to the bottom of the ocean, but she had to try to find Simon's jewel!

Then she spotted part of a rock, the underwater part, that was near the ship. Hanging from a crevice and sparkling dimly in the underwater light was…

…his anklet!

She unfolded her wings underwater, an odd sensation, and pumped them as hard as she could. It propelled her, underwater, over to the rock. She grabbed the anklet tightly in one hand and then pushed herself above the water. She gasped in a lungful of cold air.

"JEANETTE, LOOK OUT!"

She instantly swerved so that the rock was between her and the ship. The bullet hit the rock and bounced off.

She climbed up onto the rock, shook the water out of her wings as best as she could, and took off again, launching herself into the air, still gripping Simon's anklet as hard as she could. She soared over the ship and dropped it, and he caught it in his outstretched hands. He wasted no time in slipping it onto his ankle and thrusting his hands out.

Instantly, a force field surrounded him, and he stood up. The chipmunk fired desperately again and again, but he couldn't hit Simon.

Simon ran straight for the chipmunk. The chipmunk screamed and swung the gun at Simon's head.

But then Simon vanished.

"What the…" The chipmunk gaped, dumbfounded.

Jeanette, still in the air above the ship, laughed with delight.

Then the invisible Simon smashed into the chipmunk from behind, yanked the gun away from him, and hurled it overboard into the sea.

The chipmunk instantly fell to the deck and cowered. "Please, don't hurt me!" he begged. "I was just working for Adam—he's got my family! I didn't have a choice! Don't hurt me, please!"

"Jeanette, come on down, please," Simon called, not tearing his gaze away from the chipmunk.

Jeanette carefully flew downward in ever-diminishing circles before landing lightly on the deck. She stumbled slightly before regaining her balance and rushing over to Simon. The two hugged tightly.

"Are you okay?" she asked him urgently. He nodded and hugged her to him even more tightly.

He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "By the way, the wings make you look very hot."

She giggled and blushed.

"What do we do with him?" he asked her in a louder voice, gesturing to the scared chipmunk on the deck.

She looked down and shrugged, biting her lip.

But then it was taken out of their hands as the chipmunk sprang to his feet and vaulted over the deck, vanishing over the side. They hurried to the rail and peered over to see him swimming toward Adam's rock fortress.

"Didn't have a choice, right," Simon muttered, glaring after him.

Jeanette flexed her wings. "I can go get him if you want," she suggested.

Simon considered it, and then shrugged. "Might as well just leave him," he sighed. "He's not worth our trouble.

Jeanette hugged Simon again. "Don't ever do that again!" she cried. "You scared me."

She took a step back and carefully focused. There was a flash of light, and her wings vanished. Smiling, she looked down at her gem and saw that it was the same light purple color as her wings, not changing anymore. The silvery stuff was gone.

"I guess I have my powers now," she giggled.


	15. Chapter 15

**Here it is…the very last chapter. :'( Man, it went by so fast…thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the wonderful reviews! I appreciated every one of them.**

** I really hope that you've had fun with this story, because I know I have.**

"We need to find the others and get home, fast," Simon said urgently. He looked out over the ocean.

"Where are the others, anyway?" Jeanette frowned.

"They're coming," Simon told her gently. "They went inside to go plant the GPS on Adam. We're going to track him and send the police after him as soon as we get home."

"Simon, I'm really worried about them," Jeanette said quietly. "Can we please go and see what's taking them so long?"

Simon sighed. "All right, let's go."

"Together," Jeanette interjected, raising an eyebrow at him.

He grinned at her. "Yes, together."

"I still haven't forgiven you for that, Simon Seville," she snapped. "Honestly, locking me in a cabin…" Still grumbling to herself, she climbed upon the rail and opened her wings. She spread her hands and her wings out.

"Jack, I'm flying!" she called over her shoulder. Giggling at her own pun, she dove off the stern of the boat and flapped her wings, soaring high into the air.

Simon rolled her eyes. "Do you think you can fly me over to the rock, Rose?" he snorted.

She giggled but went to fly over to him. She grabbed him. "Hang on tight," she called, and then she took off into the air, beating her wings furiously as she flew out over the sea.

"Oh, gosh, you're heavy," she exclaimed as she began to sink lower and lower.

"Don't drop me!" Simon yelped. "Please, Jeanette, don't drop me!"

"I'm…fine," Jeanette huffed, straining up higher. "We're…almost…there."

They finally reached the rock, and she dropped him on the ledge and collapsed.

"You okay?" Simon asked sheepishly.

"Lay off on the toaster waffles," she gasped, but winked at him to let him know that she was joking. She stumbled to her feet and grabbed his hand tightly.

"Let's go," she whispered.

They hurried into the fortress.

After stumbling around in the darkness for a while, they thought that they heard something.

Simon gasped and quickly made himself invisible. He reached out and touched Jeanette, trying hard to make her invisible as well, but nothing happened.

Then he got an idea. He expanded a force field over both of them and made himself invisible, still keeping a firm grip on Jeanette. He grinned when he saw her become invisible, too.

She looked over at Simon with wide eyes, but she couldn't see him anymore—she could only feel him, holding her hand tightly in his.

Just then, they heard low voices, whispering to one another, and very fast footsteps coming straight at them. Simon tried to move to the side of the hallway, but it was too late.

SMASH!

Four figures rounded the corner, smashed into Simon's force field, and fell to the ground.

One of them struggled to his knees, and a very familiar voice came from his mouth.

"Brittany? You all right?"

"I'm fine," another figure moaned, getting to her feet as well.

"Theodore, what did we hit?" Eleanor's voice asked.

"I…there's nothing there!" Theodore sounded very perplexed.

"Guys!" Jeanette cried.

They all jumped. "Jeanette?" Brittany's voice was dumbfounded.

"Theo, it's us!" Simon said quickly. "Give us some light!"

Astonished, Theodore made another ball of light and held it up in his hand. "But…where are you?" he asked.

Simon lowered the force field, and Jeanette came back into sight. Then he made himself visible again.

"Boy, are we glad to see you!" Alvin cried. "Do you know the way out of here? Adam will find us soon, and—,"

"I already did."

They all cringed and slowly turned to see Adam standing there, arms crossed tightly.

"I see my little plan didn't work," he hissed.

Theodore focused, and the corridor was flooded with light. They could all see one another.

Simon clutched Jeanette closer to him and quickly extended a force field over the six of them.

"Guys, did you get the GPS on him?" Simon barely breathed, his voice too low for Adam to hear.

"No," Brittany whispered back. "We were trying to find him, but…"

"Forget the GPS!" Eleanor hissed. "We have to get out of here!"

"What are you all hissing about?" Adam snapped.

Jeanette stepped forward, though. It was time for her to stop hiding. She elbowed Simon and whispered, "Get the others back to the ship. I'll be there soon."

"No," he whispered back, his jaw set. "I'm not going to leave you again."

"Simon." She stared up into his eyes. "You're going to have to trust me if we're all going to make it out of here."

He stared at her for a long, agonized moment, and then slowly nodded.

The force field was lowered, and Jeanette stepped forward slightly so that she wasn't in it anymore. Simon extended it over the other five, and they raced back down the passageway.

Adam looked like he was about to follow them, but he turned back to Jeanette instead. "What, you're not running after Lover Boy?" he sneered at her.

Jeanette took a deep breath. "Adam," she said quietly. "What happened to you?"

He froze and stared at her.

She shook her head. "Adam, as I've told you before, I was always there in Callie's mind, and I share some of her memories and feelings. But only the very strongest ones." She took another deep breath and stared directly into his eyes. "And I remember every single memory she has of you."

He couldn't breathe.

"I know that you miss her," she said softly. "I know that you love her. And I know that she loved you, too. And I'm so, so sorry. I never meant to cause you any pain, Adam. That was never my intent, ever. I do want you to be happy. And I'm so sorry that you're going through this. If there were any way I could make it better for you, I would." And she hesitantly hugged him.

He felt frozen and wooden as she took a step back.

"But I can't." Her whisper was barely discernable. "I'm so sorry." She sighed. "You were the kindest, nicest, politest chipmunk that she ever knew. You were amazing and sweet, and now you're a monster." Her voice broke. "You caused me so much pain. What happened to the Adam that Callie loved so much?" Her eyes filled with tears. "Adam, she's gone, and we can't do anything about that. But she would have wanted the Adam SHE knew to keep living."

"No," Adam whispered, his face pleading. "There IS something we can do. We can keep experimenting. We can keep trying. We can get Callie back." His face was broken and distorted as he begged. "Please, Jeanette. Please, come back with me. I don't want you to be a prisoner in her mind, but I need her back. Maybe we can find a way to fix it—,"

"I can't come back with you, Adam," Jeanette said quietly. "There isn't anything we can do to change me back. I've examined the injection that Simon put into me, and there isn't any way to undo it. I'm sorry. And I can't live with you as Jeanette. I've got a family and a wonderful chipmunk out there named Simon who needs me."

"NO!" Adam lunged for Jeanette, the crazed look back in his eye. He grabbed her by the arms and yanked them both behind her back before she knew what he was doing.

"There's always a way," he whispered. "We can find the cure. I can."

"No," Jeanette whispered. "I'm sorry, Adam. I already told you, I can't come back with you."

"Then I'll take you back."

"I'm afraid I can't let that happen. Not again." Jeanette's voice had an undercurrent of steel running through it now.

His grip loosened ever so slightly in shock, and she managed to squirm away from him. He slowly sank into a crouch.

"You can't get away from me," he told her, slowly coming toward her. "Your precious Simon isn't here to rescue you."

He lunged.

Jeanette closed her eyes and her fingers brushed across her gem. For a moment, she smiled slightly.

Then she snapped her wings open and pushed down, hard, shooting up toward the rock ceiling as Adam shot by under her.

She hovered above him. "I told you, Adam," she said to him, her voice quiet but very firm. "I'd change this if I could. But I can't. Not the way you're thinking."

She turned and beat her wings, soaring down the passageway. She could hear Adam racing along on the ground beneath her. The ceiling wasn't very high, and she knew that Adam could catch her and bring her down with one well-placed jump. She swallowed and flew faster, shooting down the passageway like a rocket.

Then she saw the opening in sight.

Adam lunged for her ankle, and she swerved at the very last second, and then she was free, soaring up, up, out of the caves, out of the horrible rock that had been her prison for so long. Sweet, cold, ocean air filled her lungs as she beat her wings and soared high through the sky, the moon shining down on her. Adam skidded to a stop before he toppled over the ledge, the wind blowing at his clothes and his fur as he watched Jeanette sail away into the distance.

She looked back at him one last time.

_Sorry, _she mouthed, her face open and apologetic and full of pain and sorrow.

And then she turned back and flapped her wings a bit harder, soaring through the air toward the ship, where Simon was leaning over the rail and waiting for her.

***sigh* The end at last…**

** Don't worry, it isn't over for our friends! I'm making the third story in the trilogy right now, titled "Among the Stars." Be looking for it at a website near you!**

** I hope you enjoyed this one. **** Until the next one, Hostfanatic out!**


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